Use a coin toss.
Silicon Valley Bank, a bank that offers a range of financial services tailored towards technology and life science businesses, is considering whether to remove names from job candidates’ résumés in a bid to prevent unconscious bias from its recruiters.
The bank has already undergone unconscious bias training globally, which involves exercises including splitting into groups and assessing the merits of four different résumés, only to return to find they belonged to the same candidate — just with different names and genders attached.
It’s those sort of exercises that has got the bank thinking about what it can do to prevent unconscious bias, according to Tracy Isacke, Silicon Valley Bank’s corporate relationship management team managing director.
She explained that with female names, for example, the groups were more likely to question the candidates’ credentials.
“It was eye-opening,” Isacke told Business Insider. “The first thing [we’re thinking about] is can we do something that takes the name out in the initial screening?”
Using artificial intelligence [AI] to screen candidates could also help prevent unconscious bias, according to Isacke.
“Technically this person looks more qualified, but [AI] could get more people to the top of the pile,” she said. “Most women — and this is a generalization — women tend to look at a job and say: ‘I can’t do that.’ Whereas men — and again, this is a generalization — go: ‘I can smash that job two levels up’. AI could look at a candidate through LinkedIn, social, and other data [to help decide who is best-qualified for the job] — although you have to be careful not to make it too much of a machine decision.”