Charlie Ryan The Recruitment Queen commented on the following article:
 
https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/is-blind-recruitment-truly-gender-blind/
 
“I think it is interesting how determined we are to prove that we are providing equal opportunities when in some cases we are moving towards a world of not recognising the benefit of the differing sexes and how they approach things. Providing equal opportunities should not mean blinding us to appreciating the differences brought because of our gender!
 
When we are screening cv’s, regardless of the name or the more “female” words used on a cv, we should be determining wholly on their ability to do the job and nothing else. It is wrong that we are making life more and more difficult for candidates in making these processes more laborious and time consuming, because we are unable to educate those doing recruitment, IE. we have to provide a system to stop them choosing a male over a female or visa versa! Does this not indicate that we recruited wrongly already if we have to “blind” things on an application, because of the judgement or personal bias of our recruiters or our HR team?
 
What about coming back to the right person for the job? Sometimes that is a man and sometimes it is a woman, and why wouldn’t you be choosing the best person for the job these days? And all of that being said, sometimes because of the behaviours of certain individuals they can be better for one job over another regardless of their gender. And yes men might be using more powerful nouns on their cv which makes the candidate more identifiable as male, but again if we want women to do this, let’s educate and empower from a younger age. It is also important to ensure that women are not just copying the more powerful male words, we need to help them identify the words which best describe them and if those words are not right for the job then so be it.
 
I would love to see a more transparent and honest world in all areas of recruitment, where we are not giving a candidate the feeling that they didn’t get the job because of their name, their gender, their sexual orientation, their ethnic origin, their age etc. etc. And also for a candidate to be able to blame one of these reasons and become bitter to wanting recompense for this. The reason they don’t get through the process should be based on their experience and their behaviours. Sometimes though these areas can come back to our upbringing, gender, age etc etc and we should appreciate not ending up in the wrong job where these things are taken into account.
 
Lets get standards upheld so as the people in the jobs recruiting are able to uphold good values and judge applications on the basis of the qualities of an individual rather than the gender. But don’t get all the way to the end of a process where for example you have “blinded” everything , including the lack of power words the female has used and she can’t have the job anyway, because she doesn’t exude that confidence at interview as required by the job. Maybe there was a good reason for the lack of “power” words on her cv!!!
 
Lets appreciate people for what they are and who they are and what they bring to the company because of this. Then, match them to the company and the job, and do it quicker by not blinding us through the process. Educate…… Educate…Educate!!