Skip to main content

Employers - Is it Time to Throw Away the Resume and Perform Blind Interviews?

Written by: Roger Lear
Published on: Feb 4, 2016

According to from Bersin by Deloitte, US companies are spending an average of $4,000 in cost per hire in 2015.   That is expensive especially when your hire doesn’t work out.  It may be time to consider doing some blind interviewing. Blind Interviews

Blind interviewing is a pretty simple concept.  You post your job and when the job seeker applies, the resume is stripped completely of everything except for skill sets.  Removed are names, work history, hobbies, links to social profiles and schools; anything that would give away age, race, sex or other things like a very choppy work history.  The stripped resume will be a set of “keywords” that are directly related to the job you have open.  Instead of an initial interview, you will bring the candidates in to do a predetermined project that will make them showcase their abilities to the actual job. If the candidate passes this test, the next step will be the formal interview. 

Why even consider a blind interview?  Take these points into consideration:

  1. A well written job description still gets a lot of people who apply who really don’t qualify for the position.  Your new job description will have a list of “must haves” and you will let job seekers know in the job posting that instead of an initial interview, they will be asked to do a project that will test the mandatory skill needed. So many job descriptions are very average and job seekers apply because they are not sure if they actually qualify.  Adding in a target salary is also very important in the job description.
  2. Completely changes the initial resume screening process.  The software that strips the resume is looking for the must haves only.  It doesn’t care about anything but those skills; which certainly keeps a level playing field.  The software doesn’t discriminate.  
  3. Blind interviews are great for technical jobs since there is many testing software or projects that can be developed to test potential candidates.  If you are hiring sales or customer service employees, while it may be harder to determine, you can certainly put them on the phone or do some mock sales presentations that will be very close to exactly what they would be doing in the job.
  4. Blind interviews will find some awesome talent that may have been eliminated in the initial screening process because so many job seekers are not professional resume writers.
  5. The project the job seeker completes can be used to ask very specific questions about their skills should they get qualify for the face to face interview.  It can give the employer the ability to identify where they may need training or even find some other skills that may help other departments.

Want to test how the blind interview works?  Go to a local job fair and on your table, list the positions you have available.  As you meet job seekers, don’t look at their resume and just ask them which job they have an interest in.  Have a couple of “must haves” questions ready to roll for each roll.  If it is for a homeowner’s claims adjuster, ask them three questions that they have to know.  If they answer those