As technology is to developers, hiring it to recruiters. Throughout the year, the human resource team collects candidate data, interviews candidates, and hires them. However, during this process, they all are hoping to hire the perfect employee who will help them increase the efficiency and productivity of the workplace.

No doubt, hiring is a science. The HR teams need to talk to the candidate to assess if this person is the right fit for the workplace environment. For instance, a company that focuses on software development and follows agile processes may want a candidate who is open to uncertainties, change, and collaboration.

It is not possible to figure these qualities (soft skills) in an individual without talking to them, which is why blind hiring may not be the best option for many HRs.

Let’s see what is blind hiring, why it is preferred by many organizations, and why it may not be the best fit for you.

What Is Blind Hiring?

As the name suggests, the blind recruitment or hiring technique is used to assess the qualities and skills of an individual. A person sitting for blind hiring may need to revamp their resume as it won’t contain hobbies, name, alma mater, and previous experience. Since only work and skill set counts, it increases workplace diversity.

Usually, blind hiring human resource teams do not personally meet and interact with the candidate. The candidates are judged solely based on their skills, which are analyzed through a short test or project work.

How Does It help in Workplace Diversity?

Blind hiring doesn’t involve assessing the candidate in person, which removes personal bias to a great extent.

Here’s how blind hiring is known to increase diversity:

1. As the HR team would not meet the candidate in person, they may not be able to involve personal bias in the interview process. For instance, an HR manager would be more inclined towards a candidate who has the same alma mater as hers. This is eliminated when you don’t know the alma mater of the potential employees.
2. The individuals have to perform a test or series of test to pass the interview. This ensures that the candidate with the best knowledge on the subject is hired regardless of his/her alma mater, caste, creed, race, qualification, and experience.

Is This Practise Perfect?

While blind hiring may be the perfect fit for many organizations, it is not accepted widely. This method of hiring was originally popular in the software development domain. But, now, it seems illogical because even software development companies are moving towards agile. If your employee, who you have hired through blind recruitment, is not collaborative, agile working will fall apart.

Your hired candidate may not be the right fit for your workplace culture. Today, HR managers have to put in more efforts than ever for hiring. This is because they need to find the soft skills in the candidate which are absolutely required for the job role.

For example, if you want to hire a coder but also want him or her to be in touch with the client, you need this person to be polite, good with communication, and available on call. This person also needs to be a patient human being and great problem-solving skills.

What if you hire a good coder through blind hiring and this person is not able to handle client complains?

You will eventually end up ruining relationships with a good client.

If we again go back to the agile example, then a candidate hired through blind recruitment technique may not be able to collaborate and change according to agile processes at all. You can teach someone hard skills but that is not possible with soft skills.

Another major drawback of this technique is the inability to judge enthusiasm and zeal for innovation. Currently, innovation is the single thing that separates one organization from another. If your employees lack the passion for innovation, they may only focus on the work assigned to them. They will not put in extra efforts or thoughts at all.

Conclusion

While theoretically, blind hiring is an amazing concept that can help in increasing diversity in the workplace, it is not the best option today. Every organization needs candidates who can fit in. To judge this ability to fit-in in a specified culture, human interaction with the HR is necessary. Only HR managers can personally interact and judge if a particular person can satisfy the requirements of a job role.