Blind Shortlisting 

We are shifting our recruitment process across our organisation to address the potential for bias. Research has shown that white sounding names receive preferential treatment in the process of shortlisting and that people from ethnically diverse communities have to send around 60% more CVs on average than white people. Research has also shown that even when employers are trained to be objective, they still are more likely to hire men than women or gender diverse people and pay them more on average. This is why we are phasing in blind shortlisting through our new recruitment system. This will mean that hiring managers will not see names or any personal information from candidates and can make their decisions around who is best for the role based on experience not identity. 

Questions instead of CVs 

We are also introducing the option to have questions instead of CVs. People will be assessed on whether they have the skills needed for the role rather than what school they went to or what their grades were. To give you an example, the type of questions we will be asking will be ‘Tell us about a time that you adapted your communication style for different audiences’. Our recruitment process includes guidance on how to answer questions using the STAR method  

Inclusive Recruitment Training 

We are also trying to prevent our hiring managers from being influenced by similarities or differences in CVs i.e. if someone went to the same university as them or someone worked at a company that they dislike. This is important to us because we know that people can have affinity bias and if they are in positions of power they are more likely to hire people like them, we are only continuing to support a cycle in which individuals succeed due to their backgrounds rather than any skills they may have. 

We have mandatory training for everyone involved in hiring that covers role design, blind shortlisting, inclusive interviews. We talk about biases and how to address them and provide hiring managers with a checklist for interviews to help them to make changes to their interviews. 

Good luck! 

Finally, we wish you good luck with your application and if you have any feedback at all, please do reach out to recruitment@rfu.com as we are always looking to improve!