Blind Hiring

By Michael Cork, Esq.

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In 1973 I spent some time at Fort Campbell, KY, home of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, aka, "Screaming Eagles." Former President Nixon contacted me a year earlier with a notice that my plans for post-graduate education would be derailed for some time.

One of the redeeming qualities of Fort Campbell is that it's not far from Nashville, TN, and some pretty decent music venues. When a friend scored some tickets to a Uriah Heep concert one weekend, we made the trip and caught a very memorable concert. In addition to the main event, we thoroughly enjoyed the warm-up band-an interesting group from Texas by the name of ZZ Top. A few years later, ZZ Top came out with a song titled, "Driving While Blind," which reminded me of "Blind Hiring," and hence this rabbit-trail.

"Driving While Blind" has nothing to do with "Blind Hiring." Hopefully, the latter leads to better results than the former. Blind Hiring or anonymous hiring reflects the attempt by human resources professionals to judge potential hires by their abilities and not their resumes. The process entails redacting personal information like names and alma matters, and looking only at an applicant's work. In some instances, companies will ask the anonymous applicant to work for a day on a special project, write a short story, or complete some other work.

The genesis of Blind Hiring was research suggesting that information like a person's name can affect how they are viewed and potentially cause hiring managers to make biased decisions. Proponents claim that Blind Hiring identifies actual talent and facilitates diversity. It's part of the quest for career success based on what you know as opposed to who you know. (Good luck with that.)

One enterprising start-up is pairing applicants with potential employers in chat rooms. In addition to encouraging that no names be shared, there are plans for a voice-masking feature to further assist anonymity. HR professionals are intrigued with the prospect of Blind Hiring, as it holds the promise of identifying those "applicant-jewels" who are lost in the normal recruiting process.
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Sex, race, and to a certain extent, ethnicity, will be obvious during the initial meeting. But it will take some time for hiring managers to feel comfortable with an interview in which the applicant's name isn't mentioned-at least not during the first face-to-face.
However, the outcome is still more certain than driving while blind.