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Just Get Over It

Dec 18, 2009 / Recruiting / Trackback

stopPer­sonal bias can really get in the way of can­di­date selec­tion. Rec­og­niz­ing that as Utopian, Zen and Feng Shui as we are, we all have per­sonal biases. Iden­ti­fy­ing them allows us to acknowl­edge them. Once we acknowl­edge them we can con­sciously table them and not allow them to affect our decisions.

For instance, there once was a woman named Reina.….. It’s your lucky day for I will spare you the very gory details.

It’s not a com­mon name in the US and it had been a few years years since I had been sub­jected to it. About 7 years ago as a call cen­ter man­ager I received a cal­en­dar appoint­ment to inter­view a “Reyna”. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Imme­di­ately, all I could think of was there was no way I was going to deal with that even though I knew with 100% cer­tainty that it was not the same person.

I got up and took a walk.  I needed air. And as I walked I talked with other per­son­al­i­ties that reside in my mind and as we con­versed and sorted it all out we came to the con­clu­sion it was impor­tant to give this per­son a chance.

It’s not the same Reina so what are you wor­ried about? She doesn’t even spell it the same way. You can’t judge a per­son by her name, don’t be ridicu­lous. What if you dis­miss her because of some­thing in your past that noth­ing to do with her, miss out on a great hire and do her an injus­tice? Just get over it.

I took some deep breaths, con­vinced myself to do the right thing and accepted the inter­view. Reyna turned out to have very high per­for­mance reviews over the next 5 years and in most respects really was a model employee.

This is a true story! I’m glad I rec­og­nized it wouldn’t be fair to judge some­one on some­thing that wouldn’t be per­for­mance related. Had I allowed my per­sonal bias over a name to influ­ence my deci­sion it would have been a very big mistake.

What per­sonal bias have you had to deal with? Was it dif­fi­cult to rec­og­nize it existed? How did you over­come it?


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  • Anony­mous

    Karla, it’s funny you men­tion it, I’ve had a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion in my past.  My Ex Husband’s first wife was named “Nancy.”  I used to say to my girl­friends, “I’ve never met a Nancy I like…I think it’s a cursed name.”  It’s silly, and yet, I held a bias.  It’s the oppo­site of the halo effect.  May I should call it the pitch fork effect.  I’ve since met some won­der­ful peo­ple named Nancy…but to be hon­est, it was an irra­tional bias that pre­vented me from giv­ing all the Nancy’s a fair chance.  

    • http://karlaporter.com Karla

      Such an excel­lent exam­ple of the phe­nom­ena we are all prey to. Being aware allows you to ‘check’ your bias… which is a good thing for any Nancy job seek­ers that come across your desk =)

  • jenileedeal

    Thanks for the insight­ful arti­cle! To add another layer, HR not only has to deal with per­sonal biases, but also the per­ceived biases of man­age­ment and clients (for service-oriented busi­nesses). It seems to me that in all cases the solu­tion is the same. That is, HR must put any biases or per­ceived biases aside, regard­less of circumstances.

    • http://karlaporter.com kar­la­porter

      @jenileedeal Thanks for your visit and com­ment. What you said is so true… it takes broad shoulders.

  • http://karlaporter.com kar­la­porter

    Shen­nee — When our mind plays tricks on us we have to be trick­ier! I see a faith­ful reader award in your future :-)

    pas­muz — You hit the prover­bial nail on the head “this is not my per­sonal life; this is the work­place & it’s about the work.” Also, you did the right thing at that black­ball place… I would have done just the same. I have 0 tol­er­ance for cer­tain things.

    Margo Rose — Ugh.… you mean there is a 3rd way to spell it? Deep breath.….…

  • http://twitter.com/pawspagal Margo Rose

    Karla, it’s so funny that you write about this topic. I used to feel the same way about peo­ple named “Nancy.” The rea­son is point­less to dis­cuss, but the bot­tom line is that cer­tain names can evoke psy­cho­log­i­cal reac­tions based on mem­ory. There are some incred­i­ble Nan­cys in the world, just as there are Rey­nahs. I hired a Renah when I owned my own busi­ness. She turned out to be the best employee I ever had. Thanks for writ­ing this post. As always, you know how to bring a mes­sage home.

    Your twit­ter­pal,

    @HRMargo Margo Rose http://hrmargo.com

  • http://www.welcometotheoccupation.com/ pas­muz

    Karla, I just did a draft for my blog on this sim­i­lar sub­ject. (I had a dream about vam­pires last night that inspired it.) Per­sonal bias is some­thing every HR per­son strug­gles with. We are still human after all. My guess is that the biggest strug­gle for HR is peo­ple nat­u­rally like peo­ple who like them, & dis­like those who dis­like us. I always move through this by remind­ing myself: this is not my per­sonal life; this is the work­place & it’s about the work.
    The worst case of per­sonal bias that I ever expe­ri­enced was not mine, but some­one else’s. I worked for some­one that had a rep­u­ta­tion for black­balling inter­nal can­di­dates. The rea­sons were never spo­ken. It didn’t mat­ter if they had the KSA’s. Solu­tion: moved my employ­ment elsewhere.

  • http://karlaporter.com kar­la­porter

    Shen­nee — When our mind plays tricks on us we have to be trick­ier! I see a faith­ful reader award in your future :-)

    pas­muz — You hit the prover­bial nail on the head “this is not my per­sonal life; this is the work­place & it’s about the work.” Also, you did the right thing at that black­ball place… I would have done just the same. I have 0 tol­er­ance for cer­tain things.

    Margo Rose — Ugh.… you mean there is a 3rd way to spell it? Deep breath.….…

  • http://twitter.com/pawspagal Margo Rose

    Karla, it’s so funny that you write about this topic. I used to feel the same way about peo­ple named “Nancy.” The rea­son is point­less to dis­cuss, but the bot­tom line is that cer­tain names can evoke psy­cho­log­i­cal reac­tions based on mem­ory. There are some incred­i­ble Nan­cys in the world, just as there are Rey­nahs. I hired a Renah when I owned my own busi­ness. She turned out to be the best employee I ever had. Thanks for writ­ing this post. As always, you know how to bring a mes­sage home.

    Your twit­ter­pal,

    @HRMargo Margo Rose http://hrmargo.com

  • http://www.welcometotheoccupation.com/ pas­muz

    Karla, I just did a draft for my blog on this sim­i­lar sub­ject. (I had a dream about vam­pires last night that inspired it.) Per­sonal bias is some­thing every HR per­son strug­gles with. We are still human after all. My guess is that the biggest strug­gle for HR is peo­ple nat­u­rally like peo­ple who like them, & dis­like those who dis­like us. I always move through this by remind­ing myself: this is not my per­sonal life; this is the work­place & it’s about the work.
    The worst case of per­sonal bias that I ever expe­ri­enced was not mine, but some­one else’s. I worked for some­one that had a rep­u­ta­tion for black­balling inter­nal can­di­dates. The rea­sons were never spo­ken. It didn’t mat­ter if they had the KSA’s. Solu­tion: moved my employ­ment elsewhere.

  • shen­nee

    Nice Karla–
    I am sure that was an inter­est­ing hir­ing expe­ri­ence for you. You can’t judge a book by it’s cover, and names are included.
    Keep up the great writ­ing. You inspire me!


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