London Sport wanted their hiring to reflect their values of fairness while building a team representative of the city they serve. By completely removing CVs from their process, they've started making fantastic progress to achieve just that.
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We exist to make London the most physically active city in the world. That means we have to engage with *all* Londoners and thereâs no question we need to represent the city that we serve.
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Weâd already made some positive steps in our diversity journey when we connected with Applied. We were convinced that CVs and cover letters were poor predictors of talent and very aware of the prevalence and impact of unconscious bias. As a small team, finding a solution that was both fair and manageable from an admin point of view was really important.
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We started manually blinding CVs which allowed us to review applications without fear of our own biases creeping in and getting in the way of the task at hand â to find the best person for the job with a passion for advancing our mission!
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For anyone starting out with a manual process, weâd strongly recommend measuring the time spent to do this. It can be so easy to dismiss technology that can help when youâre a small team with limited budgets, but we quickly found out it âcostâ us around 1 and a half days of collating and anonymising data for every hire. Not only was this a lot of resources to waste, the opportunity cost for that very skilled person was huge!
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There was something of a leap of faith to move to Applied and get rid of CVs entirely. The Applied sift didnât only mean a faster way of achieving our ultimate goal but a significant culture shift. CVs have been around for decades after all!
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We neednât have worried! We very quickly found that we immediately won back a full 1.5 days per hire by automating the blinding portion of the process. We also had excellent feedback from candidates who rated our process 9/10 on average and have retained 100% of Applied hires.
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Combined with our own internal efforts to improve inclusion at London Sport, we saw a more diverse range of candidates, with 50% more applications from BAME candidates than weâd seen before. By focusing on simply identifying the most suitable candidate, rather than implementing a diversity goal for its own sake, we were able to make great leaps forward.Â
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On top of this, we found that 5 out of 6 of those we interviewed scored highly enough to have been hired. Thatâs great news for hiring managers who no longer have to sit through interviews that will go nowhere. This goes both ways, too. We no longer waste candidates' valuable time if theyâre not likely to thrive in the role.
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âMoving to Applied allowed me to be more hands off and took the pressure off my team so they could focus on optimising our pipeline for diversity. Despite our initial hesitation, the wider team loves Applied as much as we do⊠it even won a poll of the best thing about London Sport last year at our Christmas Away Day!â - Chris Anderson, Head of Grants & Governance
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âApplied has been fantastic! If youâre serious about removing bias, try blind hiring... youâll be amazed! I can tell you from my experience, it wonât stop you finding the right candidates!â - Chris Anderson, Head of Grants & Governance
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No! All CVs tell you is where someone worked, they donât reflect actual skills at all! Now that weâve ditched them for good, it doesnât make any sense to me why anyone would still be using them! (Chris Anderson, Head of Grants & Governance)
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London Sport works in partnership with Londonâs Local Authorities and a host of agencies to support less active Londoners to build physical activity habits that support their health, wellbeing and prosperity.
"If youâre serious about removing bias, try blind hiring... youâll be amazed!"
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