Netflix’s hit show can teach employers a lot about hiring practices
Franco Marini
If the Netflix reality dating show “Love is Blind” has taught us anything, it’s that—with very few exceptions—love is not blind. But behind the cozy pods, love triangles, messy breakups and obligatory gold-hued glasses lies something unexpected: genuinely useful nuggets of business advice. Because while getting engaged to a relative stranger to whom you’ve only spoken from behind a wall isn’t the best way to fall in love, it might be a great way to improve diversity and inclusion in hiring practices.
Season 6 of “Love is Blind” debuts on Valentine’s Day, which makes it a perfect time to look at the idea of “blind” hiring, says Franco Marini, an adjunct professor in the Daniels College of Business Executive Education program, which provide quick-hit, relevant and research-based programming to individuals, teams and organizations.
Deidentified or “blind” hiring is a practice that’s gaining traction with employers—especially those aiming to build a more diverse workforce. During a deidentified interview process, an employee outside of the hiring committee removes identifying information from candidates’ applications, such as photos, names, graduation years and LinkedIn profiles. Initial interviews often happen virtually with cameras off, or via phone. This allows reviewers to focus solely on a candidate’s qualifications.
The myth of ‘love at first sight’
The goal of deidentified hiring is much like the premise of “Love is Blind”: By blocking our brains’ automatic cues, we improve our chances of finding a perfect fit in someone we may have otherwise overlooked. But where the television show seeks to remove physical attraction from the romantic equation, this approach to hiring targets unconscious bias.
“When we meet someone, the first thing we get is just a whole barrage of electrical information and chemical information,” said Marini, who founded the educational experience company Global Journeys. “In about one second, we have already analyzed the interviewee—their posture, their outfit, their complexion, their size, their hairdos, their speech. We make a calculation about the attributes of that individual. Are they a warm person? What about their social status? Are they intelligent? Can I trust them? And most of the time it’s totally unconscious.”
This, Marini explained, can be detrimental to the hiring process. He points to the sociological concept of homophily, which says our brains are primed to see difference and reject it in favor of similarity. That means that an interviewer, no matter how cautious or well meaning, might be more likely to pick one candidate over another simply because they share an age, race, gender or personality traits of people in their friendship circle, for example.
This isn’t just theory. Research has shown that deidentified hiring practices can measurably change results. According to the Harvard Business Review, studies from across the globe have shown that anonymized hiring improved odds for older applicants, women-identifying applicants, and applicants from underrepresented or minoritized groups.
Variety is the spice of life
When our tendency toward homophily creeps into hiring practices, it can create a troublingly uniform workforce.
“We’re comfortable, and we feel safe, and we want people like us around because we understand them better,” Marini said, “but the very basic thing is we are just not going to be as successful, because we will only see things in similar ways. We’re not going to be as creative and successful or be good problem solvers, and we may not see the possibilities that exist out there.”
And for the few successful couples who said, “I do,” at the “Love is Blind” altar, embracing difference seems to be the secret to making it last. When the couples leave the pods, they vacation together and live together, getting to know each other’s idiosyncrasies and the unique ways they experience and approach things like culture, family, conflict and finances. The couples that have lasted (admittedly, a rarity) seem to be the ones that work together across difference rather than fighting it.
For Marini, that compatibility comes down to emotional intelligence, something he advises employers to look for during the deidentified interview process.
“It’s important to be asking really good questions that get to how intelligent this person is emotionally,” he said. “Their IQ is not nearly as important as: Are they self-aware? Empathetic? Motivated? Self-regulated? Do they have successful social skills?”
Making it last
On “Love is Blind,” couples finally meet for the first time only after getting engaged. That first moment of eye contact is much anticipated but is rarely the end of the story. In both business and Netflix dating shows, it’s what comes after the initial match that has the biggest impact.
Choosing an excellent, qualified applicant for the job is a great start, but to keep them, employers must create the right environment for them to thrive. And diversity without inclusion can do just as much harm as it does good.
“I think as a leader, the key part of any successful organization is having your folks feel safe. They need to feel safe being themselves—being different and unique—and that has to be brought into the culture of the organization itself,” Marini explained. “And the very next step is the issue of trust. Those go hand in hand. Once those two are heavily established, anybody walking in is going to be embraced and supported.”
If both trust and safety are baked into a company’s identity before interviews even take place, Marini is sure that excellent hiring can be blind, even if love isn’t.
