Groupthink can be a major obstacle to making informed decisions during the interview process. Even if you are using a structured and standardized process, there is a good chance the interviewers are biasing each other without even noticing.

Here are three ways to avoid groupthink in your interview process:

1. Utilize multiple tools and perspectives: Information from multiple valid tools, such as simulations, dilemmas, and behavioral questions, as well as from multiple perspectives (different interviewers), aggregated quantitatively, has been found to out-predict a single interview tool or perspective.

2. Create a diverse panel of interviewers from different departments, professional backgrounds, genders and ethnicities. This will help ensure that a range of perspectives is represented, which can help to identify potential biases and blind spots in the hiring process.

3. Do not forward information from one interview stage to another - this will most likely create the confirmation bias (I am expecting the candidate to be flexible so I am paying more attention to the things that they say that confirm my initial hypothesis that they are flexible).

4. Refrain from exchanging impressions during or immediately after the interview - writing your co - interviewer your thoughts about the candidate during the interview? kicking them under the table? exchanging impressions immediately as the interview ends? That’s a good way to influence each other’s perspective and reduce interview accuracy that is generated by an integration of independent evaluations. It might be tempting to immediately start talking about the candidate, but evaluating the candidate separately first will result in a much more accurate, efficient and diverse process.

5. Focus on skills - we are all (falsely) impressed by specific academic credentials, previous employers and experience - focusing your interview process on assessing relevant skills can reduce the credentials bias most of us share and default to make decisions by.

By implementing these strategies, you can significantly reduce bias in your interview process and hire more qualified and diverse candidates.