Talent Cloud Results Report

Sometimes the way in which you get to a result matters as much as the result itself.

This is one of those cases.

As a methodology, the idea behind “name-blind” or “anonymized” recruitment is to hide any identity markers of applicants to “equal the playing field” when a manager reviews an application. In intention, this is well meaning, as it strives to block any manager or HR advisor from eliminating an applicant before the interview round on the basis of outright discrimination.

Organizations adopt anonymized recruitment because they want to make things better. They recognize the presence and harmfulness of racism, discrimination and bias, and they’re motivated to improve outcomes and take concrete steps to addressing hiring imbalances. In an ecosystem where there is a shortage of methodological alternatives, those who turn to anonymized recruitment do so out of the best of intentions. But even the best intentions can lead to unforeseen and adverse outcomes.

It’s our team’s belief that anonymized recruitment as an approach runs contrary to antiracism theory in four key ways.

1. Firstly, the core philosophy of the methodological approach says to applicants of non-centralized communities, “You are different. We will help you hide that difference so that others can’t discriminate against you as easily. This will create more equality.” This methodological approach in essence codes systemic bias as the problem of the applicant, not of the manager or the system itself. It is the applicant that must dramatically reconfigure their identity and representation, not the processes and human decisions inside the organization that are producing bias in staffing. In essence, the methodology fails to deliver a value structure that says, “When the organization has a problem with bias, it is the organization that must be held accountable and the organization that must change.”
2. Secondly, when there is no visibility, there is no disruption to norms in terms of recasting diverse applicants in a position of centrality, and thus no disruption to the power structures of the organization in terms of strengthening the visibility and value of underrepresented groups.
3. Thirdly, it fails to account for any impact on qualifications or experience that a lifetime of living with systemic discrimination may have had on an applicant, thereby characterizing a gendered, racialized body as a name and a face, and failing to see how a lifetime of living in that body in today’s society has already shaped the range of opportunities, choices, and experiences.
4. Finally, and significantly, it corrects only for the initial step in the hiring process, failing to address any bias at the interview stage or, even worse, in the manager or team culture after the applicant is actually hired. It’s a surface treatment of a far deeper problem.

As a result of these methodological issues, even in cases where anonymized recruitment yields an improved hiring outcome in terms of diversity (and it often doesn’t), it arrives at this result by reinforcing, rather than disrupting, the power imbalances that fuel systemic racism and gender discrimination in the first place. It’s a methodology that fails to embrace antiracism, and instead reinforces the power dynamics of the status quo.

That’s a strong statement to make. We appreciate that it may cause some friction.

Here’s why our team feels so strongly about it.

In this case, the intent of the intervention in HR practices is to produce a more equal and antiracist system of practices, with corresponding outcomes. But to change the power dynamics of a system, it’s crucial to examine how the power operates, who controls it and how, and what pressures, levers and choices are being applied. If the deeper power relationships between groups remain unchanged despite the intervention, the intervention isn’t performing its function.

In antiracism literature and theory, the right to visibly occupy a position of centrality and the recognized right to equally share visible space are both key to making change. The history of racism and gender discrimination has been built on controlling whose stories are told, who is made visible, who is hidden. (There’s a reason the story of black women mathematicians at NASA is called Hidden Figures.) Pick up a Western history book and you’ll almost entirely see the stories of able-bodied, straight white men. Other genders, races, people exist as a backdrop in history to the deeds of these great men, barely worth a footnote.

The rights to visibility and self-narrative have not been equal, and this imbalance lies at the heart of a great many of our systems. Even something as simple as a standard chair and table is optimized for a 5’9 man - hardly the aggregated average need for all human beings. But it is the invisibility of other bodies in the measuring, in the mental landscape, that allows discrimination to thrive even, and perhaps especially, when people are unaware of it.

Visibility, value and centrality are essential to antiracism and the ending of other forms of discrimination. As institutions, the mental landscape of our policies and processes are undergoing change to adopt plurality where once there was just the unquestioned centrality of white men. It’s a huge push in professional storytelling now - movies and shows and commercial products - to represent this diversity in a visible way.

Which brings things back to anonymized recruitment.

To put a visual to this, imagine an organization proposing the adoption of anonymized recruitment going to the next Black Lives Matter protest and pitching a “solution” that erases any indicators of black identity in order to effectively sneak black people under the radar of an unchallenged systemic hiring bias. It would likely cause massive amounts of offense. That’s because when your right to be yourself has been challenged and undermined by deeply rooted systemic discrimination, you go to the street demanding the rights of recognition and equal value, not the right to be hidden better.

It comes down to this: if there is bias in a system and the intention is to end it, the interventions to correct that bias must be targeted towards those in the system who are demonstrating bias (consciously or unconsciously). You cannot erase bias by removing the object the bias is directed towards. Such an action validates the right for bias to go unchallenged, fortifies the power imbalance, and further erases the validity and identity of those the system (and its actors) are discriminating against.

Because of this philosophy, our team rejected the notion of adopting anonymized recruitment, and instead worked with communities and experts to come up with an alternative methodology to increase the visibility and valuing of the myriad life experiences of equity-seeking groups.