Why Are Diverse Interview Panels Important?

When a business focuses on improving diversity and inclusivity within their organisation, they may question, “Why are diverse interview panels important to the process?”.

Diverse recruitment panels are vital to ensuring recruitment processes are as fair and free from unconscious bias as possible. When undertaking a diverse hiring process, many organisations only consider anonymising CVs and then stop there. They do not analyse one of the first impressions businesses give all candidates, via the interviewers, and how that can have a dramatic impact on hiring success.

What are interview panels?

Firstly, before answering the question, “Why are diverse interview panels important?”, it is best to lay out what an interview panel is.

Interview panels, or hiring committees as they are sometimes known, are panels of individuals involved in the recruitment process, specifically the interview stage. Led by an internal recruiter, talent acquisition specialist, hiring manager, or HR personnel, they can include representatives from different departments, team members of the future hire, as well as trusted experienced interviewers.

The goal of these interview panels is to find the best new employee for the business by using different perspectives and lines of inquiry from those on the panel.

What are diverse interview panels?

Diverse interview panels include participants who differ in terms of identity, background and experience, such as:

• Gender, race, religion, sexuality, age and national identities
• Socioeconomic backgrounds
• Physical and mental disabilities
• Neurodivergences
• Non-traditional career routes (apprenticeships, internships, career changes, as opposed to degrees)

However, it is key to note the importance of not just including individuals for the sake of a diverse interview panel, as that would become clear to the candidate and those involved. A diverse interview panel is not a checklist exercise, but rather a key opportunity to include some team members from the areas included above.

Why should businesses avoid homogenous interview panels?

A homogenous interview panel involves each interviewer sharing a similar background or identity to each other. When an interview panel lacks diversity, it can lead to several issues in the hiring process.

These issues can include unconscious biases, where the interviewers have a negative preconceived notion of a particular group of people that may be shared by the entire group, and without a diverse panel, these biases may not be called out or addressed. A homogenous interview panel may inadvertently look to hire someone who already fits in with the group of people, over someone who is a great fit for the job but may not have the same identity or background as the rest of the panel.

In comparison, by having a diverse interview panel, companies increase the chances of individuals recognising incidences of unconscious bias and challenging them. They can offer various perspectives that can ensure a more stringent recruitment process, with the best individual offered the job, regardless of background or identity.

Why are diverse interview panels important?

Diverse interview panels are vital to the recruitment process, as they aid the candidate experience and improve hiring.

Improving company diversity

If candidates from various backgrounds see themselves reflected in upper management and interview panels, this could encourage them to believe that their identity or background will not be a barrier to promotions and make them more likely to join the organisation and stay for a longer period of time.

A company that has goals to encourage diversity within their organisation but do not actively work to attract and support individuals through diverse recruitment practices, such as anonymising CVs, removing gendered languages from job specs and descriptions, and having diverse interview panels, will find themselves struggling to make progress in the right direction.

Enhancing candidate experience

Imagine entering an interview with all 5 interviewers all appearing to be similar in some way or another, one which the candidate cannot relate to. This can make a candidate worry whether they will fit into the business. This is the perspective you need to imagine when questioning why diverse recruitment panels are important.

Having a homogeneous interview panel could suggest to candidates that these are the type of people the company invests in and promotes. Whilst some candidates may not care, others may wonder whether there would be barriers to promotion if they were to join the company and whether they would fit into the existing team.

Having a diverse recruitment panel, even if they aren’t from the same background as the candidate, could suggest to them that the employer values different perspectives and hires / promotes based on skills and contributions to the company. This could help candidates have more confidence in the role and the company.

Limiting blind spots

Everyone has blind spots and particular unconscious biases. Disregarding why diverse interview panels are important and only including individuals from similar backgrounds can make it more likely that the same blind spots and biases are present in the interview group and will remain unchallenged.

Using team members from a range of identities and backgrounds will mean that there are more likely different biases present that can be challenged by others in the group and make it probable that the panel will assess each candidate more stringently rather than choosing someone because they are similar to them.

Providing growth opportunities to employees

An organisation can build a diverse interview panel while improving current employee opportunities by including a junior/mid-level employees in their interview panels.

This can be advantageous to multiple parties, as the less senior employee may have a different perspective to offer candidates and provide a differing analysis of them. Additionally, it can be a good opportunity for growth and an extra responsibility that the team member can add to their CV. This can be a great option if the employee is from the team the candidate will be joining, as they can offer a great perspective of the day-to-day environment.

A company may like to consider using different employees during each recruitment process, so as not to inadvertently create unfair opportunities or favourites.

Diverse interview panels are a crucial way to improve diversity within organisations as well as help to ensure more fair and stringent recruitment process. If you would like specific tailored help and assistance to recruit great IT talent, consider getting in touch with VIQU, an award-winning IT recruitment agency.