Please use a solid method for interviewing, but it is better for a hiring manager to ask objective legitimate questions rather than try to completely ignore that personal bias does occur.  Let me propose a radical interview approach: be honest with the fact that interviewers are human and have emotional biased reactions.   In any job interview, candidates reveal information that is irrelevant to the employment decision, but the bad data is virtually impossible to forget.  Seriously ask yourself, if the following occurred in an interview, could you forget it:

Q – Why did you leave your last job?

A – When I had my fifth child I took some time off, but now that they are 14, 10, 5, 4 and 2 years old, I decided to go back to work.

Q – Tell me about an experience you have had having to reconcile accounts that didn’t balance?

A – Not really at work, but I have been the President of the Congregation and the Treasurer of the First Baptist Church for 10 years now, and we has a situation where . .  .

If you can hear those answers and not let it influence your decision, you are much better than me.  If the employer is very concerned about attendance or having someone work on Sundays, is it realistic to expect a hiring manager to ignore this information?  I think not.  Worse yet, the typical hiring manager panics and does not follow up on his or her fears – and just does not hire the candidate.

An employer has a legitimate right to be concerned about absenteeism and work schedules.  If you tell a hiring manager to put their fingers in their ears and start humming like a 6 year old, they will try to “not hear” the information, but in reality, they will just come up with another reason not to hire the person, carefully avoiding asking the follow up question they really want to ask.  Let’s face it, most managers would want to ask:

* What are your child care arrangements so that having 5 young kids won’t interfere with work?

* I need someone to work on Sundays – can you just go to services on Saturday?

If we would just train people on how to ask good behavioral-based or experiential questions, we will avoid the legal pitfalls altogether, but there is no reason to ask people to ignore human nature.  I recommend the following technique in group interviewing training sessions:

First, pick a male in the training class that volunteers to be a “completely honest hiring manager.”   Then pick a female volunteer that appears to be in her mid-thirties.

Let’s assume that we are trying to fill the position of accounting supervisor (use a real position in your organization.)  Paul Jones is the hiring manager and Pamela Smith is candidate.  The Company, Ace Wire Manufactures, is located in Macon, GA.  The instructor then tells a story:

“The job requires some long hours, especially during month-end close.  It requires occasional weekend and evening work when preparing materials for the Board of Directors.  Paul – you fired your last accounting supervisor because he missed so many days  – you ended up having to do his job as well as your own.  OK, Paul, you are at a meeting of the local Chamber of Commerce and Pamela comes up to you and says . . .

‘Mr. Jones, hi – my name is Pam Smith.  I just moved to Macon with my husband – we both grew up here and wanted to be closer to family.  Jane Brown at the bank mentioned that you were looking for an accounting supervisor and I was hoping to give you a copy of my resume.  I worked for a public accounting firm for a couple of years and then spent the last 10 years with ABC Wire in Atlanta as an accounting supervisor – boy do I love the wire business.’  You chat for a minute or two and get a good feeling about Pam.

OK Paul, does it sound like this might be a good candidate?  [Yes, definitely!]  You take her resume and notice a BS in accounting from Georgia Tech – you decide to ask her to stop by your office at 9:00 AM tomorrow for an interview.  It is Good Friday, but you are working and you really need to get the position filled if you can.  That could happen, right? [Sure]  Feeling good about the possibilities from the interview? [Definitely]

Well guess what Paul  – the next morning was not a good one for you.  The water heater sprung a leak and you spent the morning mopping up the mess.  You finally make it to the office at 8:45 AM.  A bad morning, but a great sign as you pull into the parking lot, you see Pam is very punctual – she is standing outside 15 minuted before her scheduled interview.  You notice she is getting her portfolio case of a late model mini-van while you say ‘good morning Pamela’ – she says ‘Hello, Mr. Jones – I’ll be inside in just a minute.’  You say, ‘take your time . .  . I need to get settled first.’

As you are approaching the front door, you hear Pam say, ‘John, Jr. – here’s twenty dollars – take your brothers and sisters to the McDonald’s next door – I will come and get you when I am done.’  And then the mini-van transforms into a clown car as seven, maybe eight kids pile out.   It looks like they range in age from roughly 3 years to 15 years old .

OK, class, now here is where we see if Paul is going to be honest with his emotions. . . Paul – does Pam still seem to be the same great candidate she was yesterday?”

The typical Paul hesitates a little and then says “sure, why not?”  It is at this point that most of the men in the room avoid eye contact and the women start muttering.  Call on one of the women and ask what their thoughts are?  Often without hesitation, the person will say, “I would be worried about her missing days.”  Thank the person for their honesty and then say:

“OK, so like many of us, we have an emotional reaction to the scene – we know we don’t want to discriminate, but we also know that by the time the 7th kid jumped out the car, we forgot about Pam’s qualifications and were thinking about how many sick days she would take.

It is at this point that you need to assure the class that having that reaction makes them human, not evil.  You rhetorically ask “why would I care about an employee with seven kids? – Is there a legitimate business reason underlying my emotional reaction? . .  . Yes, there is!”  Turn to Pam . . .

“Pam – in your last 2 years with ABC Wire in Atlanta, how many days of work did you miss?”  If Pam is paying attention, she will say, “None.”  I will then look at another participant and say, “and we are lucky, too, because Jim right here worked in the accounting department at ABC for 5 years before joining us a few weeks ago.  Jim – you remember Pam, right? [Yes.] Do you know how many days she missed in the lat couple of years? [ Yes – none.]”   Then jump back to Paul and say, “OK Paul – she won the perfect attendance award for two years running, do you care about how many kids she has?”   Paul will quickly say no and the class will get the point.

If you feel bias creeping into you interview process, acknowledge it, and then ask questions to allay your fear.

You think that because someone has lots of kids the will be an attendance problem, ask them about their attendance record.  If someone has a poor attendance record, it does not really matter why – you don’t want them.

You think that someone’s age or physical appearance may keep them from performing the physical labor, ask them about the physical labor components of their current job.  If someone has not performed physical labor in 20 years, it doesn’t matter how old they are, they are a bad choice.

I would rather see a hiring Manager acknowledge potential bias and make a hiring decision based on valid objective data.  Down the road, it may allow us to help hiring managers address the more subtle biases that will exist in the hiring process for years to come.