Episode 74 · 18 January 2024 · 37:52
How the Undercover Candidate exposed the shocking truth of recruitment
How the Undercover Candidate exposed the shocking truth of recruitment
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Intro: Nora's story stopped Leanne mid-conversation
intro#workplace-culture#employee-stories#culture-misconceptions
The Undercover Candidate project begins
Illegal interview questions: 'Are you planning to have kids?'
interview#illegal-interview-questions#hiring-bias#discrimination
Why recruitment is the foundation of workplace culture
A shocking example of bias in a real interview
interview#interview-bias#real-example#hiring
Confirmation bias and sunk-cost thinking in hiring
Practical fix: redacted resumes
The Undercover Employee: working incognito at Fortune 500s
What big companies get wrong (and small ones can fix)
Where to find Nora + next week's guest
Show notes
How the Undercover Candidate Exposed the Shocking Truth of Recruitment
What happens when a 20-year HR veteran goes undercover — 250 job interviews, five Fortune 500 frontline roles, and a hidden camera in her pocket?
Nora Burns knows exactly what's wrong with recruitment. As a former Fortune 200 HR leader, she spent years inside the system. Then she went undercover to expose it from the outside. Joining Al and Leanne, Nora shares the ground-breaking research from her Undercover Candidate project: the illegal interview questions, the bias baked into hiring processes, and the ethical lines crossed so casually that most candidates don't even notice.
The stories are shocking — but the message is practical. Al and Leanne break down what Nora's findings mean for hiring managers, what the research says about confirmation bias and sunk-cost thinking in recruitment, and why a strong hiring process isn't a nice-to-have — it's the foundation of any healthy workplace culture.
The Undercover Candidate Project
Nora Burns built her career in HR leadership at Fortune 200 companies. But when she started consulting on hiring processes, she kept seeing the same problems — and knew the only way to prove them was to experience them.
So she went undercover.
Over the course of her research, Nora:
- Completed 250+ job interviews, all undercover
- Worked incognito in frontline roles at five Fortune 500 companies
- Documented recruitment practices that were unethical and, in many cases, illegal
The findings? Hiring processes are far more broken than most leaders realise — and the people paying the price are candidates.
The Interview Question That Should Never Be Asked
Nora was asked an inordinate number of times whether she had kids — and what her future plans were around having them. The question is illegal in both the US and the UK, yet it came up again and again.
As Leanne points out: "You should never ask questions regarding pregnancy or future plans to have children."
The issue isn't just the question itself — it's what it reveals. Bias is so difficult to eliminate from recruitment that even the most robust processes fail. And when bias slips in, it's often the candidates who can't fight back who pay the price.
Why Culture Starts With Hiring
Al makes the point bluntly: "You cannot have a strong workplace culture unless or until you have a strong recruitment and hiring platform."
Yet recruitment is often treated as an afterthought — something managers do because they've done it before, not because they've been trained to do it well. As Leanne notes, many hiring managers assume that because they've been managers at previous jobs, they've already learned those skills. They haven't.
The result? Organisations hire for the wrong reasons, miss the right candidates, and build cultures on shaky foundations.
Confirmation Bias & Sunk Costs
Leanne and Al dig into two psychological traps that wreck hiring decisions:
Confirmation bias — our brain's tendency to look for and focus on information that confirms what we already believe. Once you've decided someone is right for the role, you unconsciously filter everything they say through that lens.
Sunk-cost thinking — the more time, effort, and money you've poured into a recruitment process, the harder it is to walk away. Leaders become so aware of the cost that they keep going down a route that isn't working.
The fix? Al recommends heavily redacted resumes and applications — removing names, ages, genders, and other identifiers so candidates are assessed on their actual ability, not their perceived fit.
From Undercover Candidate to Undercover Employee
Nora didn't stop at interviews. She took her research further, working undercover in frontline roles at some of the biggest companies in the world. What she found was disturbing — including organisations willing to share employee information with other employees without consent.
The good news? Even the big companies are getting it wrong. That means smaller organisations have a real opportunity to stand out by getting hiring right.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Hiring is culture. You cannot build a strong workplace culture on a weak recruitment process. Get hiring right and everything else gets easier.
- Bias is baked in — fight it actively. Confirmation bias and sunk-cost thinking will sabotage your decisions unless you build systems (like redacted resumes) to counter them.
- Illegal questions are still being asked. If you're a candidate, know your rights. If you're an interviewer, know the law — "Are you planning to have kids?" is never acceptable.
More From Nora Burns
- Connect with Nora on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/noraburns
- Pre-purchase Nora's book: theleadershipexperts.com/shop
Related Episodes
On Discrimination at Work:
- 34. How to identify and eliminate toxic work cultures
- 32. Why understanding women's health is vital for male leaders
- 41. Neurodiversity 101
On Recruitment:
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Nora BurnsI think the most misunderstood aspect of workplace culture is that it doesn't matter what the sign says on the wall of the break room. It matters what employees say when the manager leaves that room. That's your real workplace culture. And so, we can't dictate it from the top. We can encourage it, we can develop it, we can put resources and strategy behind it, but we can't simply put up a poster or a plaque and think that that's what it is.
Leanne ElliottHello, and welcome to the Truth, Lies, and Workplace Culture podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are the award-winning psychology podcast that is here to help you simplify the science of people and create amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottYeah, if you didn't hear the news, we won an amazing award just before Christmas. Go back to last episode, listen to the first 3 or 4 minutes, you'll hear us talking about it. It's very, very exciting. Award-winning podcast. Never thought we'd say that.
Leanne ElliottI know.
Al ElliottWell, I did, but I didn't think we'd say it quite so much.
Leanne ElliottI didn't.
Al ElliottAnd on that note, let's welcome you to another episode. So today we have got an amazing guest. We'll go into that in a second. I just have something I want to talk about first though, Lee.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottUm, we went back—
Leanne ElliottIt's a safe space, Al. You, you talk.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Good, good.
Al ElliottThank you. Thank you. Well, we went back to the UK over Christmas, bought our annual supply of Yorkshire Tea.
Leanne ElliottUm, has anyone tried the jam and toast one?
Al ElliottWell, this is what I want to talk about before we do that quickly. If you are from Yorkshire Tea or Taylors of Harrogate and you're listening, Um, then we've got a really good engagement program which I think you would love. So, uh, get in touch, slide into my DMs.
Leanne ElliottWe will accept tea as a means of payment.
Al ElliottWell, actually, that's a good point, because if you do, if you do buy our services, then we will, we guarantee to invest a percentage of it back into tea. So it's basically free.
Leanne ElliottBasically.
Al ElliottAlways be closing in that. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems, and in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Nora BurnsNice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Anyway, oh, exactly what I want to talk about. So they do the normal tea. Uh, if you're not, if you're not British, then you probably were like, why the hell are they talking about tea? Tea is very, very important. They do the normal tea, then they did one with biscuit, like biscuit flavour. It was great. It was like you're drinking tea without a biscuit, and but it tasted of biscuits. It was lovely. Tried the jam and toast one this morning. Not a fan.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Al ElliottNot for me.
Leanne ElliottYes. Before we do, quickly, you might need to edit this, love. We've been babbling for a little while now. We've got an episode to get on with. But anyway, I wanted— I had some new listeners that Either reached out or got in touch, or I saw a comment on, on stuff that we've been putting up there. So I just want to say hello, first of all, to Amy in Sydney, Australia, Steve in Koh Phangan, Thailand, and the person or persons in St. Lucia that have yet to identify themselves. I have asked, um, but have got us to the top 10 in Apple Podcasts in that beautiful part of the world. Welcome!
Al ElliottMight be top 5, actually.
Leanne ElliottWhat did I say?
Al ElliottI think you said top 10, but—
Leanne ElliottOh no, it was top 5. We picked—
Al ElliottTechnically correct on both counts.
Leanne ElliottYeah, so yeah, welcome. We're thrilled to have you, even if you are all in warm and sunny places and my toes are frozen. It's fine, I'm fine with it. Welcome.
Al ElliottIt's fine, it's fine. So, Lee, let's start off with an email. I think this whole—
Leanne ElliottYeah, it did. We get lots of emails from potential guests asking to be on the show, which is lovely, but to be honest, most of them aren't Very good, nor that interesting. I've lost count of the number of guest requests we have for people who want to talk about marketing. Um, so yeah, sorry if you've emailed and we've said no, or indeed not replied. Um, but late last year, I got an email from a woman who had such an interesting story. It was a brilliant email. I knew we had to get her on the show immediately.
Al ElliottI remember you being so excited. You were so excited you stopped and you made me take my headphones off so you could tell me what you— what she said.
Leanne ElliottI did. Well, the reason is, is that this woman has done over 250 job interviews, all undercover. So up until recently, she was an HR executive for a Fortune 200 company, but she decided to start a project called The Undercover Candidate, where she'd find out just how bad the recruitment experience is today by going through said recruitment experience. And then She took it one step further and actually took on a couple of jobs with a few of them to see what the employee experience was like. That project was called Undercover Employee.
Al ElliottIf you've ever seen the TV show Undercover Boss, then you'll know the format.
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly, exactly. An incredible woman. And when I spoke with her, we proper nerded out for about an hour about all things recruitment and workplace culture. Luckily, Al has managed to edit this down to around 30 minutes, But you'll be able to see the full interview on YouTube shortly.
Al ElliottJust before Leanne introduces everyone and gets us all in the right mood for it, just want to quickly apologize. We were let down a little bit by our, um, by the online studio app that we use. I won't name it, but it rhymes with Heem Yard. Um, and, uh, and so the recording that we've got of our guest, uh, the audio is perfect, but if you're watching on YouTube, then there is— it's that it's weird because it's like her lips aren't quite matching it. So I'm sorry, I've tried to do something with it, but I can't. So So, screw you, recording app. But anyway, you will enjoy it nevertheless. So, should we go meet our guest for today, the amazing Nora Burns?
Nora BurnsI am Nora Burns. I am based in Denver, Colorado, in the United States, and my area of expertise is workplace culture, very specifically how your hiring process and your onboarding process really sets the stage for your workplace culture. I am known for being the undercover candidate. And the undercover employee. So what that means is I've been on over 250 job interviews, not as myself, not because I'm unemployable, but for research purposes. And also worked on the front lines of 5 Fortune 500 companies here in the US where they did not know that I'm a former HR executive in the Fortune 200, but rather they saw me as another in a long line of polyester uniform wearing employees. Bringing up orders, stocking shelves, driving the truck, cleaning the bathrooms.
Leanne ElliottI do quite a bit of research myself here at Oblong and love this idea. I, to be honest, I want to do it as well. So, as a fellow research nerd, I wanted to find out how Nora set up the project.
Nora BurnsThe Undercover Candidate project started because I was consulting on hiring, um, processes and redefining and reimagining hiring for clients. For client organizations. And I can really picture myself in the conference room where this hit me, that I was helping this organization redesign their hiring process when I had not been on the other side of the hiring table in more than a decade. So I thought, oh, you know, I'll just do a handful of interviews in a neighboring city that I can easily drive to, but I won't be easily recognized in should the HR executive walk through the lobby while I'm sitting there to interview for a receptionist position. So it started with a handful of interviews thinking maybe I just need to experience what the other side of this is to become better at my job. And I was really horrified by what I experienced, just lazy interviews, bad questions, some bordering on, if not unethical, at least unethical, could be illegal if you made a hiring decision based on the information here in the United States. And I was like, this is bad. And then I love data and I realized I needed more data. This was such a subset of being in this one one suburb of Denver. And so I met with my business coach and with some HR pros and some ethicists and put together the project plan and committed to doing at least 100 interviews in different cities across the United States so that it wasn't a bias of one particular style of leadership in one city. And it just grew and soared from there. So, and now I actually do it as an offering for clients where we audit their hiring process. By sending candidates through and looking for all of the things that I observed and identified as potential flaws and leakage of risk assessment information or just dangerous hiring practices that'll get you to the wrong hire.
Al ElliottBut I want to know, what was the most surprising thing that she discovered?
Nora BurnsI think the things that surprised me the most is that we're pretty lazy about our hiring. And that sounds pretty harsh. And I can't think of another better word for it when Hiring manager after hiring manager is reading my resume or application while walking down the hallway with me, trying to figure out where they're going to interview me. Like, the bulk of the interview and the most important part of the interview is actually the hour that happens in preparing for it so that you have a really spectacular experience, both you as the hiring manager and the candidate. Without that preparation, the interview is not going to go well, and you're not going to get the best candidate. So, it was the lack of preparedness, walking in, being left waiting in waiting rooms for 10, 15, 20, 35 minutes and thinking, you got to think about your candidate as if you're meeting with the CEO, right? You need to be on time, ready, prepared. They are so important to your overall organization. And if we're treating them poorly, then it's not going to get better. And it's like a first date, right? If you show up late and sloppy and rude on a first date, you're not getting a second one. It's not unlike that, just the questions are different.
Leanne ElliottI've consulted with quite a few organizations around recruitment, and recruitment is one of the 3 fundamentals of our RX7 coach methodology that we've created at Oblong. But I find this real-world experience really fascinating. Nora has been in HR for a long time, so she knows how recruitment should be done. So what were some of the mistakes that she saw?
Nora BurnsI was asked An inordinate amount of times if I had kids. And what's interesting, and again, I show up as I am, right? I did this research as a 40 and 50-year-old woman. And so part of that is some of the bias that goes in there. I've asked men my age, nobody's been asked. I've asked it in the middle of a keynote where the room is filled with men and say, who here has been asked during a job interview if they have kids? The only people who will raise their hand are women. It is sometimes asked as a, I'm just trying to make you feel comfortable, I'm trying to, you know, break the ice, hey, you know, I'm trying to get to know you kind of a thing. It doesn't mean that it's any less dangerous to ask because it's a— here in the United States, we've got protection on family status, and there's a huge discriminatory and biased effect because women are being asked the question and men aren't. And really what some of these organizations are asking is How many sick days are you going to take? How, you know, how many soccer games do we need to schedule around and those types of things? So I was really surprised that in today's day and age, people are still inquiring as to if I have kids. And again, sometimes completely innocent. They're trying to find some commonality to talk about. It's still dangerous and still not appropriate.
Al ElliottRight. Okay, trigger alert, Gen X, white, privileged, straight, childfree, middle-class business owner here. That's quite the Venn diagram. It's probably just me in it. If I spent all this money and time on finding an amazing person to hire, then don't I have a right to know if they're about to take 3 months off to look after a kid?
Nora BurnsThe short answer is no. The other thing is, it is— we have protections here in the United States. There's protections about that. There's legal protections having to do with that and asking about pregnancy. And if you plan to have kids, those are all things you make a decision about that. on your hiring process that you can get sued for and find yourself in front of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about. And more importantly, it sends a message to the employer, to the employee that you don't care about their whole selves, right? Like in terms of if we want to make sure that you can give your full life to us 24/7, 365, that's not what the workplace is willing to do anymore. And so, it goes into that kind of cultural element as well. And the thing is, you have no idea if I'm going to have kids or not. If I'm, if I'm in my 30s as a woman, I decided not to have kids by that time, but I'm not going to mention that because it's not relevant to the job. And you might have a guy who's going to have 7 kids and he wants to spend an inordinate amount of time with his kids and he doesn't want to work even full-time. So there's nothing that, that you can really make based on our gender. Because those, those norms are shifting. Um, but yeah, it doesn't— it's really none of your business. What matters is the fact that I can do the job, that I have the skills and abilities to do the job, and that I am presenting myself as a person who will continue to do the job.
Leanne ElliottIt's the same in the UK. Uh, you should never ask questions regarding pregnancy or future plans to have children at a job interview, or indeed at any other time of the employee's tenure, to be frank. If you do, you're providing candidates with strong evidence that you're in breach of laws against sexual discrimination found in the Equality Act 2010. You might be thinking, Leanne, why are you phrasing it like that— evidence rather than proof? Well, the law is a gray area in this respect, as it is in, in many. It's not illegal for you to ask a person if they plan to have children, but it is unlawful discrimination if you use that information to make a hiring decision. Any evil genius business owners out there who have a white fluffy cat on their knees might be thinking, cool, awesome, I'll ask the question, I just won't say that's why I didn't hire them. Well, unless you have an evidence-led recruitment process and objective marking criteria that you're happy to release to candidates and their solicitors under the Freedom of Information Act, being honest, I'd advise against it. You will be taken to court. You will be asked to pay considerable compensation. And to candidates, you are not under any obligation to answer these questions during an interview. In fact, even if you are pregnant at the time of the interview, you are under no obligation whatsoever to disclose that information. The thing is, right, being ethical and effective in your recruitment process is one thing. What makes my head explode is that business owners out there, many of them, the majority of them, don't engage experts to develop and run their recruitment processes. And because they're not doing that, they are putting themselves and their businesses at risk. Huge, huge risk that you wouldn't imagine taking elsewhere, like in financial practices or in health and safety. I would bet that 95% of SMEs out there are regularly committing unlawful discrimination every time they recruit for a role, and I want to give you some examples on this. In your job advert, you should be saying that you'll care for workers with a disability. Not doing so is unlawful discrimination. You have to be able to prove that if you're saying in your job advert that you're looking for a recent graduate or somebody highly experienced, that, that is an actual requirement of the job. And that is only defensible if you conducted a robust and more than likely independently ran job analysis. Otherwise, you're excluding younger or older people from applying, and that is unlawful discrimination. Even where you advertise could cause indirect discrimination. For example, if you're only advertising in men's magazines or in colleges with a lack of ethnic diversity, you are more than likely committing unlawful discrimination. And, you know, ignorance is not a defense. That's why recruitment is a science. That's why recruiters are very well paid for the work that they do. And that's why Nora, Nora and I lose our patience with business owners and leaders when they continue to ignore recruitment practices, a critical aspect of workplace culture.
Nora BurnsCannot have a strong workplace culture Unless or until you have a strong recruitment and hiring platform, because it all traces back to how we find people, where we find people, and how we treat them when they're coming in the door. Your relationship, any relationship that you have, doesn't start 60, 90 days in. All of this ties back to remember how we met. Well, how we met is the hiring process. How we met in the employment relationship is how I was recruited, and we all too often forget that. It's an employment relationship. We remember the employment part. There's taxes, there's paperwork, there's benefits, and we forget the relationship part, which is the core part, the core part of why people come and why they leave. So, if I, as a candidate, am coming to your organization to do an interview, and you leave me waiting in the waiting room for 20, 30, 40 minutes instead of meeting with me on time, and then nobody apologizes, nobody ever apologizes for leaving me waiting, and then their first interview is an interrogation and not a conversation, That has now set in my mind the story of what our relationship is going to be like, and it's going to carry forward from there. When I show up on the first day of employment, you hand me a dirty uniform while telling me how important it is to have a clean uniform. True story. That tells me that I can't really trust you, and that's part of the basis of our relationship moving forward. You can't fix that at 30, 60, 90 days easily. It is—
Leanne Elliottthe framework of the relationship has been I 100% agree, but I also know that recruiting is often done by management within a company, and therefore that's often where you need to start. Nora thinks the problem is that managers assume they know how to recruit properly. Spoiler, they don't.
Nora BurnsIf you ask a group of managers and hiring managers and leaders how, you know, about the importance of hiring, they will all agree it's, it's radically important. And then you ask, how much time do they spend on that? It's 15 minutes of preparation for an interview. And that's just a huge disconnect. And part of it is, I think they don't know where the tools are and the resources are to become really much better at it. And a lot of organizations don't train their managers on hiring. They assume—
Leanne ElliottDanger, danger.
Nora BurnsThat because they have been managers at previous jobs, that they have already learned those skills. And it's a default mechanism. We assume people have the skills, even though we've proven time and time again that it doesn't exist in the market. The other is people assume that they're good at hiring because they have been hired. Like, oh, I've participated in an interview. I know what interviewing is. And so, they then ask the same questions that they were asked when they were in the hiring process. The problem is, If I'm asking questions that I was asked when I first joined the workforce, I, I was 17. That was more than a few moons ago, and things have changed quite a bit. We shouldn't be asking people what they do for fun and what their spouse would think about this job and if they have kids and things like that that aren't relevant to the job. But we're asking the same questions that we were asked.
Al ElliottOne of the other things that Nora saw during this project time and time again was being ghosted after the interview. You need to stop doing this. You're creating massive damage to your brand.
Nora BurnsIf you're hiring for frontline positions, if you're hiring for fast food, if you're hiring for frontline manufacturing in a very manufacturing-driven area, geographic area, if you're in competition for a lot of those frontline work, I'm going to give you 24 to 48 hours to get back to that candidate. We need to speed that up because right now they've got lots of choices and you're competing with a lot. And if you show that you're gonna communicate with them and communicate with them quickly, that actually is gonna give you a cutting edge. But making sure that they know what the expectation is when they submit that resume. And then, oh my gosh, you would think this is low-hanging fruit. You would think that everybody's doing this. But if you have spoken with a candidate, you have called them to get clarification on their resume or application, you have asked them to come in, you've asked them to do a phone interview or a Zoom interview, you owe them a damn phone call. To get back to them and tell them where they stand. It's core communication, follow-through, making sure that you close that loop because those people know other people who would be strong candidates for you, and they're going to spread the word that you did or did not get back to them. Stop ghosting candidates. I was on a 3rd-round interview, 3rd round, and it was down to me and 2 other candidates, and they all of a sudden just went off the radar, gone. No follow-up, no follow-through. I'd given them not only phone time, but I'd flown to them to do the interview. I had a phone interview and then nothing. And we are doing major damage to our employment brand when we do that. And we're costing ourselves future candidates and often future customers. If you're talking about recruiting for a franchise restaurant, you've now not only cost yourself a candidate and future candidates, you've cost yourself customers. Because they're your frontline employee, is also your customer. And so, you're doing damage on 2 different sides of your business with one lack of phone call, with one missed phone call.
Leanne ElliottNora shared a specific example of someone she can't name for obvious reasons.
Nora BurnsSo, she was a candidate for a decently high-level position in an association, and had done an interview on Zoom, had done a video response to some questions, was scheduled for another interview. And then received an email 2 days before that interview that just said, we've selected another candidate. Thank you. Good luck. Right? And I thought, ooh, you kind of owed her a phone call. Thank you for the email and not completely ghosting, but you kind of owed her a phone call. But the other thing that happened is this organization hired in haste. They got very excited about a candidate. They canceled all of their other interviews. There's always a background check that has to happen or should happen. We could do a whole podcast just on background checks. And that candidate might still back out. And now you've already alienated your second, third, and fourth candidates. I felt so bad for her. And she has landed in exactly the right place. And that wasn't the right employer for her because she wanted stronger communication in her employer. But the reality is she'll never recommend anybody to that association. And that's a small market. I mean, everybody in associations knows everybody in associations. And it's going to do damage to their hiring for a very long time.
Al ElliottNow, regular listeners will know I'm a huge AI nerd. So my first thought is, why can't we get AI to help with all this?
Nora BurnsWhat I fear will happen is that AI will get way too involved in our hiring protocol, and we will become less connected instead of more connected. That's my fear with where we are currently in, in 2023, looking into 2024. What I hope happens is that more and more organizations understand that it is an employment relationship, that treating employees as widgets, as having disregard for their time, their expertise, their brilliance, and that will, will cost us in the long run.
Leanne ElliottThe sad fact is that bias is so, so difficult to eliminate from recruitment, even the most robust recruitment process, because as humans, We are biased. It's as simple as that. In psychology, biases are often referred to or a result of cognitive errors, and there is a whole list of them. I do not have the time to go through them all, but when it comes to recruitment, some are more likely than others to cause biased decision-making. For example, confirmation bias. Ali, you know this one.
Al ElliottI do. I used it once, and I, I, back in about episode 40, and the answer was like, who the hell told you that? I do listen to you, you see.
Leanne ElliottYou do, you do. So yes, confirmation bias. So that is our brain's tendency to look for and focus on information that supports what we already believe. So for example, if I see a candidate that is married, female, early 30s, likely she'll have children soon, I can't afford to pay maternity, therefore I won't hire her.
Nora BurnsHmm.
Leanne ElliottAnother is the halo effect. So this occurs when your first impression of someone skews your perception of them. It's positive typically if we're talking the halo effect, and you'll likely attribute other positive traits if your first impression is positive. So even if somebody is attractive, for example, you'll assume that they have other positive traits like being smart or being funny. Pretty privilege is real. And a negative impression works the same way. We call this the reverse halo or horns effect. If your first impression about a person is bad, you'll likely assume the worst of them. First impressions really do count. And as a job interviewer, you also need to be aware of other candidates' biases, not just your own. You may have heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect. That's the— yeah, the more you know, then the more you realise you don't know. But in this scenario, it's the people that lack that level of self-awareness that you need to be careful of. They often overestimate their knowledge or ability, and I'm sure there are many, many people listening who have made a hire and then been hugely disappointed in the resulting capability and performance that has joined the business. And last but by no means least, bias creeps into the recruitment process through the sunk cost fallacy. Al, I'm guessing you know this one too.
Al ElliottYeah, if you've spent some money on something, then you think it's better to keep going down that route rather than just cutting your losses and starting again.
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely. As a leader, you are so aware of the time, effort, cost that has gone into the recruitment process. You have to make a hire from this cohort of candidates, right? Even if it means hiring the best from a bad bunch. And as Al mentioned before, as Nora explained, don't think AI and applicant tracking systems can get you out of this. Recent research really depressingly shows that AI is biased too. So yes, alongside an evidence-led, independently developed recruitment process, Nora also offered some great tips to help eliminate bias in the selection process.
Nora BurnsOne of the things I recommend for hiring managers and organisations is to do heavily redacted resumes and applications.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking.
Al ElliottAnd you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Authors.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Al ElliottIt is.
Leanne ElliottIt's such an interesting area. It's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)It can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Keep that in.
Nora BurnsThe person who's making the decision, I don't want to have name. I don't even want to have the name. Make up a name. Bob 1, Bob 2, Anna 1, Anna 2, whatever. On the first pass, on the first pass, I don't want to know where you went to college. I definitely don't want to know what year you graduated college. I want anything that could bias me in my selection process to not be part of that first round of reviewing resumes and applications. Because I can tell you, having done some A/B testing as the undercover candidate, we've got some strong bias by industry of which applications move forward. The traditionally male name, the traditionally female name, the person who puts 25 years of experience versus the person who puts 5 years of experience. There's some pretty strong bias in that. And if we can remove that, we're going to have better hiring. And, and of course, we're going to find out when they're sitting across from us, we learn a whole lot of information about skin color and gender information and all of that. We don't need it at the start of the funnel. And it will make our hiring processes stronger in the long run.
Al ElliottI come from a business development background. And so I know that the first 30 days of onboarding a new client is when they're most excited, but also when the tiniest thing can spark this buyer's remorse, when they can begin to think they've made the wrong decision. Turns out the exact same thing happens with new hires.
Nora BurnsYeah, onboarding is just bad. It's just bad. And the thing is, we have organizations that are doing a lot of work on designing really solid employee onboarding experiences, and here are all the steps, and here's what you need to do. And then, we've got frontline managers who are skipping those steps because they don't have enough time to go through them all and get that employee on the register, or doing the housekeeping, or stocking the shelves, or delivering the merchandise. Their bandwidth is not there. The key is that people understand that it's a relationship, that employment relationship remains a relationship. And that means that first impressions matter, but that your first point of contact with a candidate, how you treat them in that process, how you onboard them, shapes their entire viewpoint of your world, of your workplace culture. And fixing that once it's been damaged So much harder than simply doing it right the first time. So, if we can invest in that candidate experience and make it stronger and less biased and make sure that candidates understand the humanness element is connected, oh my gosh, we can do so much.
Leanne ElliottAs we mentioned at the top, Nora took her research even further. She actually worked undercover at some of the firms who offered her jobs, and what she saw shocked her.
Nora BurnsThe Undercover Employee happened because when I started talking with organizations at conferences and events about undercover candidate, someone would inevitably ask, did you take any of those jobs? I'd say no, because I'm willing to do a lot for workplace culture research, but a felony is not among them. And all of the undercover candidate positions were applied for under fake resumes, fake names. Nothing on there is true other than the fact that I am in fact over the age of 18. So those were not positions I could have taken. But then I started to ask myself, like, what would happen if I interviewed under my real name? Because as much as I tell managers, do not Google potential candidates, I know they do, but don't do that. Do not Google your potential candidates. You can't unring the bell. You might get the wrong person, all kinds of things there. And I thought, well, let's see what happens. So I went and applied at a Fortune 500 company for a frontline position, and I was confident I wasn't going to get it because in the middle of the interview, They asked me a question about my schedule and I just didn't have a good out. And I said, you know, I have this other job. And they're like, well, what other job? There's nothing on, nothing on this resume that suggests you got another job right now. Well, I do some training around, you know, workplace culture and sexual harassment and building respect in the workplace, right? Like, there's no way they should have hired me after I said that. It made no sense that I would be applying for a frontline position making minimum wage. For that. And yet, they had already fallen in love with me as a candidate. I could see the moment when it happened, and it was about 5 minutes before we got to this point of the discussion. And they just waved it aside, that huge red flag, and offered me the job. So, I got home and I called that business coach and some HR pros and some ethicists and said, okay, what's this one going to look like? And we put some rules around what I would and would not do. My commitment was the fact that I would work at least a year in different roles, that I would work at least 3 different organizations. All of them would be Fortune 500 companies, so I wouldn't have as big of an impact in leaving. And that I would never leave unless a different member of my orientation class left first. So I, and I would always have the goal of being employee of the month, right? So I had to work my tuchus off, uh, in addition to taking all the notes and paying attention to what's happening from workplace culture inside out. And so that's how it all kicked off. So I never named the names of the organizations where I worked. Which disappoints some people, but it's not about blame or shame. It's about what are the trends across these organizations? And if 5 different organizations are doing this, who all have the resources to do better, then that's probably an area for development of a lot of other organizations as well.
Leanne ElliottThe good news for small organizations listening is that even these big companies are getting it wrong, terribly, badly wrong.
Nora BurnsWe're very willing to give out our employee information to other employees, which was a little disturbing to me. Like all employee cell phone numbers and emergency contacts are all listed on a long list in the employee break room, which meant other employees without my permission had my cell phone number and I got inappropriate text messages coming through to that cell phone number as a result. Very shocking is the fact that I was sexually harassed at every job.
Al ElliottAs a fellow, I kind of found it shocking that she said that she'd been harassed in every single job.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's sad-making, isn't it? But I mean, not surprising, to be honest. And it's, it's not going away either. I mean, if you're listening, don't attribute this to it's just historical claims from older people in the workplace. MeToo didn't fix everything, unfortunately. There was research undertaken in 2023 by the Trades Union Congress, and it found that 3 in 5 women in the UK have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and that went up to nearly 2 in 3 women aged between 18 and 24. Most of these weren't isolated incidents. 50% of women said they had experienced 3 or more incidents of harassment. 45% of women said it had a detrimental impact on their mental health, and 25% said they'd avoided certain work situations like meetings, courses, or locations to avoid a predator. Puts a bit of a darker twist on why women may be reluctant to return to the office, particularly If it's an office environment that lacks diversity. So yeah, I guess a final word on this and the aspects of unlawful discrimination we have talked about today. If you are a business owner, don't think that no complaints or grievances means a lack of incident. And I don't say this to scare you, I say this to warn you. If the research in psychological safety has proven anything, it's that workplaces with a high rate of reported incidents are the safest and more inclusive. Why? Because undesirable behaviours, near misses, or repeated mistakes are not tolerated. In this instance, ignorance isn't bliss. It's likely putting your people, your business, and your reputation at risk.
Al ElliottYeah, pretty sad-making indeed. There was so much more that Liane and Nora talked about, um, so to see the entire interview, head over to YouTube. And search for Truth, Lies and Work and click subscribe because the video will be out shortly. Whilst you're online, head over to wherever you get your books, probably Amazon, and preorder Nora's books. They sound pretty amazing.
Nora BurnsWe're going to start with the launch of a mini book collection in first quarter where it's a collection of 3 mini books. There's a company that does this, M-I-N-I-B-U-K, mini book collection of 3 mini books from the perspective of the hiring manager, from the C-suite, and from the candidate's perspective. Same scenario reframed in 3 different approaches to that scenario and what they need to know about it. And that leads into the book coming out later in the year that will more encapsulate the experiences of the undercover candidate and the undercover employee.
Leanne ElliottSo that is Nora's experiences as the undercover candidate and the undercover employee, and a little crash course in recruiting for you. If you want to learn more about some of the things we've talked about, such as bullying and harassment in the workplace and how to avoid unlawful discrimination, I'd recommend that you go back and listen to episode 34, How to Identify and Eliminate Toxic Work Coaches, episode 32, Why Understanding Women's Health Is Vital for Male Leaders, and episode 41, Neurodiversity 101. If it's recruitment you're interested in, look back at some of our very first episodes, including Right back at the beginning, episode number 3, How to Win the Fight for Talent, and episode 4, How to Recruit for Culture Fit. Hint, don't. All available on your favorite podcast platform of choice.
Al ElliottYou can find Nora's details in the show notes. The simplest thing is probably to jump on LinkedIn because she's very active on there. Uh, just look for a black and white photo with purple glasses, unless she changes it.
Leanne ElliottI loved getting to know Nora. I love her approach, her philosophy, and her work. Do go and follow her. If you are listening and you've got a good story and can construct a cold sales email that doesn't put me to sleep, get in touch.
Al ElliottThere's a challenge for you. Now, next week we've got the king of persuasion, Phil Agnew. Phil not only has one of the world's leading podcasts on, uh, leading and persuading, but he's also one of the nicest and most genuine guys in the world. So if you thought persuasion was bad, tune in next week and Phil will change your mind, or he's promised to give you your money back.
Leanne ElliottSee you then.
Al ElliottSee you next week. Bye-bye. Then let's welcome to another, another episode.
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Do that again.
Al ElliottRegret buying and re— Well, that was just unpleasant.
Leanne ElliottThe good news for smaller organisations listening— oh, sorry.
Al ElliottListening.
Leanne ElliottListening.
Al ElliottListening.
Leanne ElliottListening. And a bit of a crass crash, crass, crass, crass, you're crass.
Al ElliottIt was a crass course and a crash course.
Leanne ElliottThat was a crash course.