HR 101

Taking A Step Towards Preventing Hiring Bias

Mimi Lombardo

At HiringThing, our company culture unites and strengthens our diverse workforce. Over the years, we have established core values that set the tone for our employees each day, no matter their color or creed.

We embrace transparency— we believe more information allows everyone to make better decisions.

We tackle hard problems head-on— we do not shy away from challenges.

We believe in results— we focus on the output and the work.

In light of recent events, we’ve had deep internal discussions about how our technology can help avoid bias in the hiring process. Our core values are not just words; we tackle hard problems head-on and we act. We are investing in efforts to promote equality in hiring workflows. As our first step, we are announcing the removal of photos from applicant profiles on our platform. Previously, this feature automatically incorporated internet avatars and other profile photo sources like LinkedIn into applicant profiles. This was an optional feature available in our software but we made the decision to remove it based upon publicly available research indicating that photos can contribute to hiring bias.

This is the initial action in our product roadmap to further promote equality and remove bias within recruiting workflows, which is a passionate cause of our team. We are committed to doing our part in advancing bias-free recruiting by reviewing our platform to ensure HiringThing supports objective decision-making throughout the hiring process.

Recruiting professionals and professionals tasked with creating recruiting strategies are in a unique position to help others hire and retain a diverse group of talented employees. A strong recruitment strategy is the bedrock of any successful DEI initiative. We created the HiringThing Guide to DEI Recruiting to help organizations reimagine their hiring practices through a DEI lens.