What is a Blind CV?

Creating a blind resume is becoming fairly common among job seekers. This form of resume is also referred to as a blind resume or anonymous resume. If you’ve never heard about a blind resume, you may wonder, why you would want to create one?

What is a blind resume? A blind resume, also called a blind CV or a blind curriculum, doesn’t include any personal details that refer to the applicant’s gender, age or ethnicity. In general, the idea is that any information that doesn’t relate to a person’s work capabilities, shouldn’t be included. The only information that should appear is academic training, work experience, and contact information so that there is unconscious bias is left out of the equation.

What is the Purpose of Blind Recruitment?

Simply put, hiring by a blind resume in the recruitment process allows the human resources manager to select the right candidate without imposing any type of preconceived ideas or discrimination.

Structure of a Blind Curriculum

Broadly speaking, the structure of this type of curriculum vitae is as follows:

• Candidate information: Although any type of personal information should be avoided, some data needs to be included. The job position to which the candidate aspires is one example. Also, the employer may require the expiration dates of official documents. This information is required in the case of needing to verify a candidate’s eligibility, by law, to work.
• Contact information: This information, such as the mobile number and email, allows the company to contact the candidate. As long as the information doesn’t constitute personal data, then it can be included. 
• Academic data: The details relating to the applicant’s studies, including the degrees or courses obtained, duration of studies, and grades are a must to include.  You can ignore the date of graduation for obvious reasons.
• Previous work experience: In many cases, the experience is what the company values most. Although, in other cases, the previous training the applicant has obtained is more valuable. Including past tasks and duties is recommended; dates can be left out.

It is true that the data provided in points 3 and 4, give the recruiter a pretty good insight into the approximate age of the candidate. However, there is little way around this, as the candidate must share information on their previous work situation and academic studies.

Benefits of a Blind CV

• Gender Equality. When there is no gender listed on the resume, the company recruiting isn’t able to reject or select a candidate based on their gender, thus reducing bias.
  
• No Age Discrimination. Commonly, mature workers find it difficult to enter the labor market, due to age discrimination.  On the other hand, younger candidates often feel this struggle too, as many recruiters view them as lacking maturity or experience. Without knowing a person’s age, the employer is forced to hire based on skills and experience rather than age.
  
• Physical Appearance Is No Factor. The physical appearance or the image of a person should not influence their candidacy.  Although for some jobs, physical appearance is one of the main factors that does influence hiring (ie. modeling).  If this is the case, a blind resume shouldn’t be used to apply for the position.
  
• Change in Mentality. The employees aren’t the only ones who benefit. The company begins to adopt a new way of working. They start to focus more on an employee’s qualities and competencies in a job, rather than age, appearance, or gender. 
  

Companies Pilot Testing the Blind Resume

In 2017, the Ministry of Health, Social Services, and Equality in Spain, led by Dolors Montserrat, began talking about this possibility of blind hiring. The minister then highlighted how it had been successfully implemented in other countries such as England, Germany, France, and the Netherlands as a way to avoid labor discrimination in the hiring process.

After requests from more than 300 companies and collaborations of various entities, in July of that same year the ‘Project for the design, implementation, and evaluation of an anonymous curriculum vitae project for the selection of personnel’ officially arrived. In this pilot program, the blind curriculum was tested in 78 companies and entities in each personnel selection process.

Case Study: Ikea Anonymous Resume Pilot Project

The first major company to implement the use of a blind resume in its selection process was Ikea. In 2018, the pilot project rolled out in Madrid and Seville. Their objective was to see the result of the pilot project before implementing it in more locations. 

The first test they ran obtained more than adequate results. After selecting 18 people through their blind resume search, 15 of them passed the interview stage and the entire selection process. Over 80% were accepted in the company after being selected without the recruiter knowing about their age, gender, appearance, etc.

Recruitment Software for Efficiency– and Equality

Talent acquisition isn’t easy, especially when it is plagued by unconscious bias from the recruiting manager. For this reason, the blind resume is incredibly useful.

Companies can also utilize recruitment software not only to create a more equitable hiring process but also to create a smoother and more streamlined process. An applicant tracking system can give hiring managers insight into every step of the candidate journey from job posting to offer letter.

Use software to gain insight into recruitment analytics and avoid under or overstaffing problems and internal vs. external recruitment.