Diversity and Inclusion | Effective Interviewing!®

Feb 2020

Overcome Unconscious Bias in Job Interviews

By having the right interview techniques in place, you can overcome unconscious bias in hiring decisions and the workplace, and build an even more successful company.

Oct 2014

SHRM: Unconscious Bias in the Hiring Process

After interviewing the interview expert Jim Kennedy, Michelle Martinez explores how to eliminate hidden interviewer bias and make better hiring decisions.

Aug 2011

Overcoming First Impressions in an Interview

Your initial reactions to a candidate can be powerful and persuasive, but they can also be spectacularly wrong. Find out how to avoid the pitfalls of snap judgments in an interview and hire effectively.

Jun 2011

Expand Your Cultural Comfort Zone in the Interview

Have you ever been in an interview situation where you experienced discomfort with the candidate because of some difference between the two of you? We teach individuals to recognize this feeling and how to expand their cultural comfort zone in order to reduce bias in the interview.

Jun 2010

Interviewing Millennials Entering the Workforce

Many employers struggle to adapt to the Millennial generation – which comprise the fastest growing segment of the workforce. Getting to know Millennials better can help you prepare for them in the interview and in the workplace.

Jan 1998

A Second Look at First Impressions

In our Effective Interviewing!® training, we try to stress how unreliable first impressions can be, and how easy it is to be misled by a single encounter with a candidate.

Jan 1998

Building Networks for Diverse Candidates

All candidates bring unspoken questions to an interview, but diverse candidates have unique and specific concerns.

Jul 1997

Diversity Competition Will Heat Up

A little over a year ago, voters in California and the Texas courts struck down affirmative action programs in their state university systems. The impact on the pool of diverse candidates was disastrous and swift.

Jul 1997

Diversity Interview Training

Ever wonder why companies with a "check-off" mentality don't see much change in behavior around the diversity issues? It may be because they are not committing the necessary time to diversity interview training.

Jan 1996

Diversity Interview Training: Changing Attitudes

We are always looking for ways to assess the impact of our training programs, so we began measuring changes in attitude among participants in our diversity interviewer training seminars.

Jul 1995

Unconscious Bias in the Interview

If you think you are impartial and open-minded, think again. The latest research on unconscious bias and how we form impressions about those we first meet suggests we do this much faster than we realize.

Jul 1995

Hiring More Women in Technology

Female executives traditionally have been in short supply in high tech firms, but technology-driven companies are currently hiring more senior executive women than ever before.

Jul 1995

Job Candidates - When English is a Second Language

Interviewers need to be careful about the use of idiomatic phrases, slang, or jargon when interviewing applicants who speak English as a second language.

Apr 1995

Diversity: The New Bottom Line

Despite rollbacks in affirmative action, nothing can alter the fact that today's global economy demands a diverse workforce.

Apr 1995

Diversity Equals Productivity

Two comprehensive new studies offer convincing evidence of a link between diversity and profit.

Apr 1995

Required: A Passport Plus Competencies

As the economy becomes increasingly global, adaptability, patience, and tolerance – all qualities that effective interviewers already look for – will become a standard part of every job description.

Apr 1995

First Impressions in the Interview

For better or worse, first impressions count. They influence our choice of friends - sometimes even of partners - and they play a major role in the hiring process.

Apr 1994

Gender and Technology

If women and men communicate differently, is this difference reflected in their attitudes toward computers? Some gender communication experts emphatically say yes.

Apr 1994

Useful Information or Stereotyping?

Sometimes there seems to be a fine line between providing useful information and using stereotypes to describe groups of people.

Apr 1994

The Biggest Minority

In many U.S. cities, the white population is no longer the majority. In fact, current demographics predict the ethnic population will grow seven times faster than the white population.

Jan 1994

Costly Assumption About Disabilities

The Rhode Island Department of Mental Health lost a discrimination lawsuit to the tune of $100,000. Why? Because the Department made the assumption that an obese woman was disabled and thus would not be able to perform the job for which she had applied.

Jan 1994

Gender Bias Starts Early

Why are there fewer females in science, math, engineering, and technical disciplines? At least one reason may be the way girls are treated by their teachers.

Oct 1993

Adjusting Interviews for Generation X Values

Interviewers need to be ready to adjust their questions and techniques for a generation of workers with different values who have entered the workforce.

Oct 1993

Legal Lunacy at Stanford

Recently, a self-defense class for women at Stanford University was cancelled after an anonymous complaint of discrimination against men.

Oct 1993

Double Standard Still the Standard

Forty years ago, overt racism was acceptable and Jim Crow laws distinctly marked the lines between races. Although the U.S. has changed laws and educated workers to embrace diversity, subtle discrimination occurs every day.

Jul 1993

Equal Pay All Talk, No Act(ion)

Thirty years after the Equal Pay Act, women's salaries still lag far behind men's. At times, the pay gap has actually widened from one year to the next.

Apr 1993

Clinton Knows "No"

Following President Clinton's recent meeting with Boris Yeltsin in Vancouver, a reporter released some notes from this event. According to the reporter, one of Clinton's comments to Yeltsin was, "Sometimes the Japanese tell us 'yes' when they really mean 'no.' "

Apr 1993

"Pssst Employees...Here's How to Sue Us"

California might be in the forefront of what may occur across the nation regarding sexual harassment. As of January 1993, a law in California requires every employer to teach their employees about sexual harassment.

Apr 1993

Brooks Brother's Blunder

In a recent job bias suit, Brooks Brothers was accused of discriminatory hiring practices, and in order to settle the embarrassing case out of court, had to pay some hefty fines.

Apr 1993

Men are From Mars

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is the intriguing title of a current New York Times bestseller authored by John Gray, a neighbor of ours in Marin County, California. The ideas in his book confirm many of our own experiences in relationships, and have relevance to principles we teach in two of our seminars Interviewing Today's Workforce® and Diversity at Work.

Apr 1993

Glass Walls Support Glass Ceiling

While women and people of diverse backgrounds have been pounding on the infamous glass ceiling, glass walls have been built up around them.

Jan 1993

Answering Unspoken Questions

Many interviewers base part of their assessment of a candidate on the quality of the questions the candidate asks in the interview. However, how many interviewers realize that in the face of increasing diversity, more candidates will be seeking answers to "unspoken questions?"

Oct 1992

Breaking the Ceiling

"The Glass Ceiling Initiative," a study done by the U.S. Department of Labor, found that there are three significant factors contributing to the glass ceiling in American corporations.

Oct 1992

15 Percent of What?

Only 15 percent of net new workers will be white males. How often has that phrase been quoted since the publication of Workforce 2000?

Oct 1992

Wedding Rings Off or On?

Felice Schwartz found that married women students routinely removed their wedding rings before job interviews with on-campus male recruiters. Why? The women students believed that male recruiters used this formula: "Woman = Baby = No commitment."

Oct 1992

Wrong or Just Different?

In our diversity interviewer training, participants learn a number of techniques for expanding their "cultural comfort zone." One such technique is to view differences as merely "differences," without labeling them right or wrong.

Oct 1992

Women Take Action

In a recent and highly publicized scandal, sexual harassment charges against the Navy Tailhook Association resulted in two Navy admirals losing their jobs and a third being reassigned. Add to this the earlier resignation of the Secretary of the Navy and it is obvious that considerable damage has been done to the Navy's reputation.

Jul 1992

ADA: General Guidelines

Four specific actions to prepare interviewers for the ADA are briefly summarized here. Informed interviewers will be responsive and make better hiring decisions.

Jul 1992

Sexism - From Denial to Action

Awareness and action on feminist issues seems to be moving along a continuum that has important implications for interviewers. Recognizable touchstones along this continuum are Denial, Collusion, Awakening, Anger, Action.

Jul 1992

Cookie Cutter Interviews

Many campus interviewers use the same questions all day long. By learning in advance how the interview will be conducted, savvy students gain a definite advantage over other students seeking the same job.

Jul 1992

ADA: Coming Down the Pike?

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires "physical accommodation" of disabled workers and new behavior in the interviewing and hiring process. Find out how companies that don't comply may face protests and negative media coverage.

Jul 1992

Improve Your ROI 56%

By building family concerns into worker benefits, accommodating companies are starting to decrease female turnover.

Apr 1992

Slang Expressions in Business Impact Job Candidate

Next time you ask your staff to run the competition out of the water, think about the dictionary definitions of the words you are using.

Apr 1992

Diversity at Work

Managing an employee from any type of diverse background can be a challenge. Be aware of your personal communication techniques, so you can help improve understanding in the workplace.

Apr 1992

Three R's at Work

When English is spoken as a second language (ESL) there are likely to be problems in communication and understanding. But what about EFL when English is a first language?

Jan 1992

Diversity: As American As Apple Pie

Diversity means taking advantage of new and multiple opportunities. In a historical perspective, this is how American business has benefited from diversity.

Jan 1992

Diversity Interview Training and Job Candidate Fit

In our diversity interviewer training, we mention a current trend whereby some candidates are less willing to be acculturated to mainstream standards.

Jan 1992

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

The ADA aims to eliminate barriers to employment attitudes of employers as well as physical access. As interviewers we need to focus on what the job involves, not the disability of the applicant. It is also timely for all of us to check our attitudes and assumptions about disabled workers.

Oct 1991

Diversity in Response to Diversity

Perhaps because we have the only program in the United States on how to interview a diverse workforce, we are seeing a range of response by corporate America to the issue of diversity.

Oct 1991

Reduce Unconscious Bias with Interviewing Training

We encourage managers to consider interviewing training that calls for seeing each person as a unique individual. This entails becoming aware of your own cultural filters so that you are better able to manage your assumptions and reduce unconscious bias.

Jul 1991