Blind hiring set to grow in India: Study

A large section of companies in India are turning to blind hiring techniques with a sizeable chunk of employers foreseeing greater usage and implementation of the process in the future, says a survey.
According to a study by TimesJobs.Com, blind hiring is gaining great popularity among global tech giants who strive to increase workforce diversity.
In this process, applicants are judged on their skills and not on the basis of where they grew up, where they studied or whether they are male or female.
Of the 1,126 employers interviewed, about 44 per cent foresee greater usage and implementation of blind hiring process in India in the times ahead, the study said.

"Blind hiring techniques are the future of competency-based recruitment. Advantages such as personal bias removal, gender parity, workplace diversity, and the development of a skill-based meritocratic organisation are too significant to ignore," TimesJobs.Com COO Vivek Madhukar said.
"However, whenever there is a change, there is resistance. The adoption of radical blind hiring techniques is no different and requires a strong commitment from top management to support its long-term success," he added.

The study said nearly 60 per cent of those surveyed stated workforce diversity would be their prime focus in 2016.
In a scenario where recruiters on an average spend less than five minutes on a resume, it is natural that inherent biases may kick in, the study said.

"To remove such biases, employers agree that it is imperative to judge candidates solely on their competency and mask non-job specific candidate information," it said.
The study noted that 58 per cent feel the blind hiring process will help improve gender diversity, while nearly 30 per cent said it helps improve ethnic diversity.
"Another 12 per cent employers felt the process helps enhance overall hiring practices by masking the inconsequential elements in a resume," it said.
The idea of blind hiring was inspired from 'blind auditions' in a popular reality TV show where the judges could only hear and not see the singers they were auditioning.

The method gained momentum in 2014 when a US startup created a software program that added anonymity to the hiring process.