Building An Inclusive Hiring Process To Decrease Bias And Find Your Firm’s Ideal Candidate

When you are hiring, do you want as many excellent candidates as possible? If so, having a process that is inclusive is important. Would you also like to choose the candidate who has the best long-term chances of success? If so, then reducing bias in your hiring process is also important.

Hiring firms rarely know for sure which candidates would have been excellent but never saw their job listing or who would have excelled if they had been chosen rather than the candidate that was hired. Firms can develop systems that predictably identify stronger candidates and that are more reliable at identifying the ones best positioned to thrive on the job.

Many advisors recognize that their firms are much whiter and more male than the world around them. They worry that they are missing out on talented candidates but aren't sure how to adjust their hiring processes to achieve better outcomes.

This happens across our industry and helps explain why, according to CFP Board, only 23.8% of CFP professionals are women, and just 5.2% are Black or Latino. Firms are missing out on a wealth of talented candidates. By improving their hiring systems, they won't just help our industry become more inclusive; they'll also gain more talented and well-rounded teammates.

When I started out in 2017 as a career-changer launching a firm, I didn't have a hiring process and ended up doing exactly the kind of hiring that leads to insularity and bias: I hired an old friend. Our life experiences, families, education, neighborhoods, and even appearances are so similar that people sometimes mistake us for each other. And while we lacked diversity in the firm in our early days, over time as we developed our firm, Value Added, we've become more mindful, reduced bias, and increased inclusiveness.

Despite starting out with 2 of us, our firm's team has now grown to 8, with only 25% being white men, several being people of color, and the majority being women. While we still have lots of room for improvement, we've done a lot to make our processes better and have created many scripts, tools, and approaches that have significantly improved our hiring practices. The following is a step-by-step account of how we've covered everything from preparing to hire to making an offer.

Pre-Hiring Preparation And Goals

Before even starting to write a job description, there's some important groundwork to be laid that will help to attract more candidates, including more qualified candidates.

First, it's important to review the firm's website and social media channels for inclusiveness. When candidates are considering whether to apply for a job with a firm, these are the first places many of them will check to get a sense of who the firm is and whether they would be excited to join the firm. Little things count. Do all (or almost all) of the people in the photos look similar? If a firm serves people of many ages, are these different age groups represented in the photos? How about different gender expressions? Is almost everyone white? Are different types of families (single parents, same-sex parents, etc.) portrayed? Who is missing from the photos?

Of course, if a firm's niche focuses on clients who are tech workers in their 30s and 40s, it's great not to have photos of charming older couples on the beach! But tech workers have a lot of race, gender, nationality, and family structure diversity, so it would still be important to capture those.

As an added bonus, adopting a more inclusive image can also make a wider range of prospective clients feel comfortable engaging with the firm.

Job Description Design

Many job boards feature a wide range of job descriptions for roles relevant to RIAs, which can provide a good starting point for crafting a job description. While sections of these job descriptions can serve as useful templates, they're not always designed to engage a diverse audience. Which means it's essential to go beyond using generic templates to attract a wider range of candidates, including those from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. A thoughtfully crafted job description can make all the difference. The following sections discuss how to make job descriptions appeal to a more diverse and broader audience.

Rethink Requirements/Qualifications

It's important to limit requirements to characteristics that are truly required for success. For example, if a job description required that candidates be at least 7 feet tall, it might lead to creating a very tall advisory team… but would it be a better team? Perhaps with regard to basketball. Including extraneous requirements will only exclude talented, skilled candidates.

What qualifications are absolutely needed for the role being hired for? Do they need to be CFP certificants, or could they acquire the CFP marks later (perhaps with the firm's support)? Could the firm hire earlier in its growth to give the team time to train a new hire and support them in acquiring licensing rather than mandating they have it from day 1?

Must the new hire have a college degree or even an advanced degree? For many roles, the answer is probably, "No, a college degree isn't necessary."

At Values Added, we try to include only the requirements in our job descriptions that are necessary for the role's function; we list other considerations as "preferred" and not required.

As an example, in a recent search for a client services associate, our job description didn't require a bachelor's degree since it wasn't necessary for the role. As a result, we met many excellent candidates we wouldn't have otherwise. Many of them had more professional experience in the industry as a result of beginning their careers earlier in life.

When hiring advisors, it's important to consider the level of experience and certifications needed for the role. While requiring the CFP marks can serve as a useful filter to ensure candidates are technically qualified to do the job, it has significant implications for the diversity of the candidates who actually apply.

A major benefit of requiring CFP certification is that it can help filter out candidates who don't have the technical skills needed to succeed in the role. However, requiring the CFP marks will likely narrow the applicant pool, making it more homogenous – more white and male than otherwise. This is because many candidates who do have the necessary knowledge and experience face significant barriers to earning the CFP marks, often tied to income and educational inequities. As a result, highly qualified individuals who do not yet have their CFP marks would be excluded.

With these considerations in mind, the benefit of requiring CFP certification will likely outweigh the cost of eliminating otherwise talented candidates when the new hire will be required to conduct comprehensive financial planning analyses right away. However, deciding to include this requirement should always be weighed carefully, as doing so will mean screening out lots of talented candidates who may not have had the privilege of working at a firm that sponsored their studies before. Ultimately, firms tend to suffer from the industry's failure to attract people from a range of backgrounds.

At our firm, we aim to hire more Associate Financial Advisors (AFAs) than Financial Advisors. We don't require our AFAs to have CFP certification or prior experience, which has helped us to build a talented team with diverse backgrounds and perspectives.

While we prefer to focus our hiring on AFAs, on occasion, we do need to hire for Financial Advisor roles. The job listing for our most recent hiring process seeking a more experienced advisor included a requirement for a "CFP or equivalent designation" and comprehensive financial planning experience. We made sure candidates with significant experience could apply even if they weren't CFP certificants, but we are also delighted when we receive applications from candidates who do have their CFP marks!

Encourage People To Apply Even When They Don't Meet All The "Requirements"

Studies have shown that many women will only apply to a job if they meet 100% of the criteria listed, whereas, on average, men will apply if they only meet 60%. Recognizing that there is a persistent difference around who feels entitled to apply, we now include the following language right below the application link in our job descriptions:

Not sure you meet 100% of our qualifications? That's okay and we hope you'll still apply. Research shows that women apply for roles at lower rates than men do, even when they are as qualified or more qualified. Regardless of your gender, race, or other identity, if you believe that you could excel in this role, we encourage you to apply and tell us in your cover letter why you're the right fit! We are dedicated to considering a broad array of candidates, including those with diverse workplace experiences and backgrounds.

This language helps more candidates feel comfortable applying, especially those who have relevant experience but who may not meet all of the posted requirements.

Include Salary Information And Growth Potential In Job Descriptions

Sharing salary ranges in job descriptions generally increases the number of candidates and candidate quality, according to recent data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Even though salary transparency is a good general practice, it also helps with inclusion because not all candidates are equally impacted by pay range. A recent study by Clara Xiaoling Chen and Victoria Fung, published in 2023 in the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN) platform, suggests that women apply more often when there are salary ranges, especially more narrow ones. Which means that the practice of including salary details in job descriptions can encourage more women to apply. Similarly, salary transparency may also have a positive impact on application rates among people of color, contributing to a more inclusive hiring process.

In several states and jurisdictions, including New York City, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Nevada, Maryland, and others, providing pay ranges isn't just a good idea; it's often required by law. For specific legal questions, it's best to consult with an attorney.

Those in the financial planning profession have never-ending opportunities to grow and develop themselves. In addition to disclosing salary information in a job description, highlighting a firm's educational opportunities and commitment to supporting team members' growth will likely attract people who are motivated to improve their skills and who value a firm that will encourage their professional development.

Review The Language Used In The Job Description

It's important for job descriptions to avoid jargon and gendered language that might discourage talented candidates from applying.

Reviewing For Jargon

It can be hard for advisors to review job descriptions for unnecessary jargon because some of it is so deeply ingrained that we don't even realize it isn't plain English. It can be helpful to ask a non-industry individual or an AI tool for feedback (always be careful to check AI outputs for accuracy and tone). The AI tool can also be prompted to revise the job description by removing any jargon (or to explain acronyms where necessary). Avoiding jargon is especially important for positions that don't require industry experience. For example, imagine an excellent operations candidate who would quickly master the work but doesn't already know what an "RIA" or "BD" is or who found the use of the term "hybrid" confusing. They might decide not to apply for the job because they didn't think they would succeed in an industry they didn't fully understand. If they would have excelled had they been offered the position, then the needless jargon created a bad outcome for the candidate and the hiring firm.

Reviewing For Gendered Language

It has long been illegal to discriminate by sex in hiring in the United States, such as by noting in job descriptions that only male (or female) candidates will be considered. Of course, firms should make sure their job descriptions are compliant with all applicable labor and anti-discrimination laws, perhaps with the help of a qualified attorney or HR expert or by relying on pre-vetted templates.

But discrimination isn't limited to these more obvious explicit cases. It can also arise more subtly, and that's a problem too. Research suggests that gendered language in job descriptions creates ongoing discrimination in hiring. Many words have strong gender associations, such as the ones in the study, "leader, competitive, dominant". For example, when Goldman Sachs removed the word "aggressive" from its job descriptions, the hiring of women dramatically increased – a shift noted in a 2019 Fortune article by Anne Sraders. Rana Yared, partner at Goldman Sachs' merchant banking division, said that the elimination of the word led to her team being 50% women at every level. Yared added that by substituting one word in a job posting, she and her co-partner "changed the vocabulary around recruiting."

Read through a job description and take note of any language that may have gender associations and how it might be balanced to avoid the tacit message that people with a certain gender identity would be more welcome. In its article, "Words Matter: Gender-Coded Language in Job Ads", The Employer's Council offers the following list of ways to limit gendered language in job descriptions:

• Use language that clearly describes the duties and expectations of the job and the specific, required qualifications. Be factual and avoid embellishment, industry-speak, and cliches.
• Make sure job titles accurately describe the job. Replace creative titles with words like ninja, rock star, and superhero (gender-coded male terms) with neutral, descriptive titles like project manager, systems engineer, trainer, or sales territory manager.
• Assess the applicant pool. Are applicants predominantly one gender? If so, it may be time to carefully review the job ad to see where adjustments can be made.
• Minimize the list of requirements and keep them job-related. Women are less likely to apply unless they meet 100% of the requirements, while men will apply if they meet roughly 80%.
• Challenge ad writers to consider incumbents of all genders who perform the job well. If everyone in the role has historically been one gender, be intentional about choosing language that is less likely to be gender-coded.
• Emphasize the firm's brand using images and a well-written commitment to diversity and inclusion that accompanies the organization's EEO statement.
• Provide and communicate benefits offerings that include programs that support a diverse candidate pool. Consider family leave, flexible or hybrid schedules, tuition reimbursement, or professional development programs.

Emphasize Genuine Concern About Promoting Inclusion

Instead of simply tacking boilerplate Equal Employment Opportunity language onto the bottom of a job description, as many big companies do, firms looking for top-quality candidates from a more diverse candidate pool should consider a heartfelt statement about why inclusion matters to their culture. What are the firm's goals for becoming more inclusive in this process? How can increased representation positively impact their clients, and how do they plan to maintain a culture of equity and inclusion? Take the time to consider these things and write a statement about why inclusion is important to the firm. In our job descriptions, we include the following statement:

We take a team approach to serving our clients and believe bringing together different backgrounds, experiences, and thinking leads to superior results. That's why we strongly encourage women, people of color, those with LGBTQ+ identities, and all members of historically disadvantaged groups to apply.

Also, a statement like this placed near the beginning of the job description will highlight its importance to the firm and ensure candidates understand how much it matters. In our descriptions, this language appears on the first half of the first page. We also include a similar theme in the final few sentences (right after the application link, where we encourage applicants who may not meet all the requirements to still apply, as discussed above). Several strong candidates who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color (BIPOC) and LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and others) have mentioned seeing this language and concluding we'd be a good fit for them because of it.

Promoting Available Positions

Once the job description is complete, it's time to post and share it!

How a firm promotes its job will have a major influence on who applies. If promotion channels introduce major bias, it's likely to be reflected in the candidate pool. If candidate pools are limited to the firm's local market instead of exposed to a broader remote market, the candidate pool will be considerably narrower in terms of both quality and diversity. If the firm uses only its own social network to circulate a job posting, it will more likely get people who look, think, and act like them.

For instance, if the founder of a firm was in a fraternity that consisted mostly of white men and sent a job listing only to his fraternity alumni listserv, he would likely find candidates with experiences quite similar to his own. This would probably result in a less diverse pool than if he had also sent the job listing to a broader network.

This is not to say that the firm owner shouldn't share the listing with his alumni listserv – perhaps the best candidate for the job happens to be an alumnus of that chapter of that fraternity – instead, the key is to be mindful of the types of candidates who are more likely to be included and excluded by each channel. If the firm's founder sends his job listing to his alumni listserv, he might be careful to make sure he also includes other promotional approaches that target more women and people of color. Because perhaps the best candidate for the job isn't an alumni of that particular fraternity chapter.

Promoting a position in the advisor's own neighborhood may help build a more diverse pool of candidates, though this depends on the neighborhood's demographics. Either way, it'll probably help to build a bigger pool, but it's still important to stay aware of the biases that can lead to substituting an easier judgment (e.g., feeling comfortable with this person) for a more difficult one (e.g., deciding if this candidate will be the best fit for the role). The closer the candidate's profile is to the advisor's, the more susceptible they may fall prey to that bias. More on avoiding biases later.

Often, candidates who are looking at industry-specific job boards belong to a limited pool. After all, the financial planning profession is widely known to be relatively homogenous – 76.2% male and 82% white as of September 2024, based on monthly data published by CFP Board.

So, we counteract this by actively posting job opportunities on job boards and through other channels where women or BIPOC candidates are more likely to see them. Here are a few examples of places where we like to send job announcements, though which specific ones we use depend on the role:

Groups that target specific populations:  

• The Association of African American Financial Advisors (AAAA)
• BLX Internship Program for aspiring Black and Latinx financial planners
• Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) (especially ones that are local)
• National Society of Black CPAs (we haven't listed here but are intrigued)
• Financial Women's Association
• The Mom Project

Industry career centers and job boards:

• CFP Board Career Center
• FPA Job Board
• po-sao.com (industry job board for financial planning, wealth management, and investment management)
• Simply Paraplanner
• XYPN VIP Facebook Group (including the sub-forum for job seekers)

General interest sites (these generally attract a more diverse group of candidates):

• Indeed
• Monster
• LinkedIn

Advisors who have used networks, listservs, or other resources that have been especially helpful for reaching underrepresented groups or excellent prospective team members more broadly – please share them in the comments section at the end of this post!

Designing And Preparing For The Interview Process

Once the job description is posted and candidates begin to apply, the next step is to prepare for the interview process. It can be an incredible experience to meet so many wonderful candidates, and it can be overwhelming for advisors to hire for the open position their RIA has – especially when it's not clear how to go about it in an inclusive way.

Identify How Hiring For "Culture-Add" Will Benefit The Firm

As Rianka Dorsainvil reminds us, it's important to focus on "culture-add" rather than "culture-fit". It's a concept that's also been widely covered in HR and hiring publications beyond our industry for the past several years. Hiring for culture-add means looking for candidates whose skills and experience will add to the team.

When candidates are screened to fit the current team, the new hire will likely have a similar background, experience, or even field of study as everyone else on the team. This can limit the diversity of the hiring pool and hamstring the firm's inclusion efforts. Additionally, people who are similar to other team members might be more likely to identify the same risks and opportunities – yet, wouldn't it be great to have a team that could expand the range of opportunities (and risks) that they collectively see?

Every firm has its own set of values and cultural norms that define the way they do business. While it's important to make sure new team members will respect those values, it's also important to celebrate how new perspectives can benefit the team, look to improve the culture with every hire, and seek out new team additions who can fill existing gaps.

In addition to emphasizing our priority on "culture add" (versus "culture fit"),  we ask candidates to complete the DiSC personal assessment tool before team interviews. This assessment helps us understand how their personalities might align with other team members and how to set everyone up for successful collaboration. Since culture goes beyond personality alone, we also consider the many ways a new teammate can help us enrich and enhance our workplace culture (which we already like a lot!).

Avoid Subjective Judgments

It is very hard to objectively assess whether a candidate has the analytical or interpersonal skills needed for any given role and their likelihood of success if they were to be chosen for the job. And yet, being able to make judgments about these things is important to hiring the right candidate. To the extent that firms can rely on more objective measures during the hiring process, they reduce the influence of unconscious biases that can arise from subjective judgment.

While hiring decisions are meant to focus on a candidate's ability to perform the job, many external characteristics can inadvertently influence our perceptions. Research shows that assessments in professional settings can be influenced by factors such as race, age, gender, socioeconomic background, and physical appearance – factors that are not indicative of a candidate's abilities to succeed in the role.

Choose A Consistent Hiring Team To Meet With All Candidates

If possible, choose a small hiring team to meet with all of the candidates (especially in final-round interviews). To the extent possible, avoid scheduling different interviewers for different candidates. Every interviewer should be prepared to write down their views of each candidate based on a standard scoring rubric (after each question).

Waiting to share opinions about the interview process when all of the interviews are complete and all scores are in helps to reduce groupthink and empowers interviewers to share honest and uninfluenced feedback. This approach ensures that unique perspectives aren't overlooked and prevents interviewers from agreeing with a manager simply because they spoke first.

How To Avoid Bias During The Interview

We're all subject to biases that require time and effort to recognize and unlearn – and some that may remain beyond our conscious control. While some hiring managers think they aren't susceptible to unconscious bias, others may assume that awareness alone can help them overcome it without realizing the actual complexities involved in doing so.

For instance, taking an Implicit Association Test (IAT), which "measures attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report", can reveal how processing speed is influenced by unconscious biases. Merely knowing that a bias exists – whether in favor of one's own group or against another – doesn't eliminate it. Even after learning about the bias, a retest will likely yield a similar result, underscoring that awareness alone doesn't undo these deeply embedded biases.

In a 2019 Harvard Business Review article about reducing personal bias in the hiring process, author Ruchika Malhotra offers several strategies to deal with these challenges, explaining that "no one is pre-loaded with inclusive behavior; we are, in fact, biologically hardwired to align with people like us and reject those whom we consider different."

One common challenge is that most job interviews are unstructured, where the interviewer uses their discretion to choose questions, ask follow-up questions, and chat casually to break the ice or keep the tone informal throughout the interview. However, this approach can lead to "affinity bias", where interviewers subconsciously favor candidates they feel comfortable with, which may influence how the interviewer evaluates the candidate's skills. As a result, different candidates may have very different interview experiences, making it challenging to fairly assess and compare candidates.

For instance, imagine a candidate from the same region as the interviewer who enjoys a common pastime, like hockey in the northern US. A friendly chat at the beginning helps put the candidate at ease, creating a sense of connection and leading to a smoother interview. The interviewer, feeling an affinity for the candidate, is more inclined to want them to succeed. Now imagine a different scenario: The candidate is from another region and has different interests – say NASCAR instead of hockey. The introductory chat is brief and doesn't establish the same rapport, leaving the candidate less at ease and resulting in an interview that wasn't as smooth. While the first candidate may indeed be the stronger financial planner, it's possible they just got lucky in having a shared interest with the interviewer.

Notably, I used sports interests as an example, which often vary by class, race, gender, and other factors. This type of connection-building chit-chat can enhance the comfort level of those who share similar interests with the interviewer while amplifying discomfort with candidates who differ in background or identity.

The United States Office Of Personnel Management (OPM) has published a valuable resource titled "Structured Interviews: A Practical Guide".  This guide offers a structured approach to interviewing that can help create a consistent interview process for all candidates and that minimizes opportunities for affinity biases. By following the OPM's structured interview process, employers can reduce bias, make the selection process as consistent and fair as possible, and provide each candidate an equal chance to showcase their qualifications – ultimately helping to identify the candidate with the best chance of success.

Ask All Candidates The Exact Same Questions

Our questions are the same for all candidates during interviews and the pre-screening process. We don't let the conversation flow freely to build rapport. We steer clear of follow-up questions or candidate-specific questions. This gives every candidate a fair chance to shine, but it also means we have to determine the questions before we start the first interview.

Structured interviews can feel a little stiff (or more than a little!), but it's worth it to generate outcomes that are more reliable and less biased. Our interview process includes a session of structured interview questions and answers followed by a 15-minute roleplay session.  In the roleplay, we act as a client while the candidate plays the role of an advisor in a pretend meeting. Although i can be challenging to keep the roleplay strictly the same across candidates, we try to be scrupulous about keeping our performances as similar as possible.

The beginning of each interview is especially important to set the right expectations, and we try to open the interview as consistently as possible with the following script:

Hi [candidate name], I'm [interviewer name] and I'd like to share an overview of the interview. We try to keep these to one hour, but just in case, do you have a hard stop if we run a little long?

This is a structured interview, which means that we will give each candidate the same questions so everyone has an equal chance to shine. That might be different from what you are used to. You might be surprised that we don't ask follow-up questions or chitchat at the beginning; this is all to make the process more fair and give you the best opportunity to share your experiences. Does that make sense?

First, we will introduce ourselves [everyone should try to always give the same intro!], and then we'll ask you 6 questions in a structured interview style; this should take about 20 minutes [this helps candidates know what length answers make sense]. Then, we will roleplay the meeting for 15 minutes, and then we'll answer any questions you have about us or the opportunity.

Explaining the approach isn't just good for the interviewee; it's also a helpful reminder for the interviewers to avoid the very natural impulse to add a little flourish here or a new question there.

Some of our favorite questions to ask include the following:

• Tell us about your prior experience motivating clients who have a difficult time taking action.
• What characteristics in past managers have helped you thrive and feel comfortable? Which have you found to be challenging in past experiences with managers?
• We all make mistakes. Tell me about a time you made a consequential one in a professional setting. How did you respond to it? How did it all turn out?

Questions like these encourage candidates to talk about their relevant strengths and provide some context for their past experience, even if it's outside of the industry. If the questions are less relevant, the answers might sway the interviewer's opinion of the candidate without actually helping them properly evaluate the candidate's abilities.

Ask For A Sample Of The Specific Work Required By The Role

Once, in a past job, before I became a financial advisor, I interviewed a summer intern. He dazzled everyone in the group interview process. He was everyone's top choice. We hired him. He came to the office as expected, but he didn't really do work. He just had coffees and lunches with team members, listened intently, made eye contact, charmed us with stories of his own, and had enthusiasm for everyone's stories. At some point, I realized that our interviewing process had selected for those skills, and so it's what we ended up with. As someone who could have used help on the actual work, though, I wished we'd used a process that helped us learn about the interns' abilities and interests in those areas!

Unless a new team member's job is to regale clients with tales of their leadership in past jobs, firms don't need to waste time looking for that ability during an interview. While those questions might reveal something about the candidate's ability to do the work required at the firm, they won't reveal as much as if the same amount of time were spent on… the work required at the firm.

One way to assess a candidate's ability to perform the job would be to ask them to complete exercises or case studies that are directly job-related. This might involve holding mock client conversations, organizing documents, preparing notes for a client meeting, analyzing an initial portfolio rebalance, reviewing an asset allocation, etc. These types of case studies are a particularly good tool for assessing a candidate's technical expertise.

Once candidates have had a successful initial interview with our selection team, we like to have them complete these exercises prior to team interviews. Exercises can be structured to have less bias than interviews, so it's helpful to use them to assess technical capability. Plus, team interviews can be a major time burden, especially when they require multiple rounds of exercises, interviews, and assessments. So, limiting interviews to candidates whose work product assessments show a high degree of skill in doing the job avoids wasting time – ours and theirs –conducting interviews with candidates who don't yet have the right skills to thrive in the position. In our process for hiring advisors, we ask them to respond to the following 2 hypothetical emails, taking no more than 20 minutes per email:

• A client has just sent an email letting their advisor know that their mother has just died. The client had a difficult and complex relationship with the mother, who tried to control the client through her money. The client asks the advisor to donate all the forthcoming proceeds.

[When we review a candidate's response, we note whether they acknowledge the client's loss, validate the client's feelings, and express genuine concern for the client's situation. We also want to see if they try to slow things down, as people can make impulsive decisions during periods of acute stress that they may later regret. This scenario presents a challenging set of issues for any advisor to approach with finesse!]

• A client has emailed the advisor for advice regarding their overconcentration in a particular equity.

[Here, we note how well they understand the issue of overconcentration, their awareness of techniques to deal with the problem abstractly, and which solutions might make the most sense. This task is geared to assess the candidate's planning knowledge and their ability to apply it effectively in client situations. We are looking for the correct use of technical concepts and the ability to communicate clearly and compellingly, especially in balancing the detail included in the email versus what to discuss later with the client in person.]

For our recent Client Service role, we included mock data gathering, drafting client communication, and completing 2 simple exercises that involved setting up a free software trial and completing a few basic tasks in the system. Since we wanted a broader candidate pool, we ensured the exercises could be completed with no industry experience.

Notably, the Management Center recommends that if an assignment will take more than 2 hours to complete, the firm should compensate the candidate for their time. Though our assessments are intended to take less than 2 hours, we now compensate candidates.

Because of the subconscious biases we are all subject to, blind reviews can be very helpful. If at all possible, try doing a blind work sample by removing any identifying candidate information from their submitted work. In their own internal hiring process, Kitces team members have been surprised by how often top job candidates with dazzling personalities from the first round of the interview process returned less-than-dazzling work samples requested later in the process.

Blind reviews can be facilitated by a hiring firm or intermediary, but candidates can also be assigned random codes in a tracking system or project management software and asked to complete tasks anonymously using their assigned codes.

We use 2 resources that help us with our hiring process. TalentLink is a recruiting firm that posts our listings across a variety of channels (including those listed above), screens applications, and shares candidates in a standard format. Natalie Bergsma, the Founder of BeyondFA, a coaching and consulting firm for financial advisors, conducts initial interviews and administers the blind case studies so we can review the results. Our full-time team then reviews the work samples, conducts 1–2 rounds of interviews with the top candidates, and deliberates over the selection process.

Standardize The Review Process

Creating a rubric for evaluating both the answers to interview questions and the simulated work assignments will encourage a fair review and comparison of candidates when the interview process is over. It's best to develop a key ahead of time so that interviewers can assign a score based on a predetermined schema rather than make a subjective judgment in the moment.

Rating each question as they are asked during the interview process can help prevent being influenced by certain biases related to the order in which information is processed and evaluated. For example, primacy bias is the tendency to better remember the information we heard first. Likewise, recency bias is the tendency to better remember the information we've heard most recently, and the serial-position effect shows that when people receive a series of information, they tend to remember the first and last items best and the middle items least.

To avoid this problem in interviews, we encourage interviewers to take notes and score each answer as it is given rather than doing so at the end. That way, each answer can stand better on its own without being influenced by the subsequent answers. Likewise, once the interview concludes and the interviewer has developed a broad view of the candidate, this might influence any scoring they do on individual questions later.

In addition to using a standardized rubric and rating each interview question when they are asked, it's also important not to discuss any of the candidates during the hiring process. At the end of an interview, I am often curious what my colleagues thought. Did they share my assessment? Did I miss something that they caught? I am so tempted to debrief. And yet, that isn't fair to that candidate or other candidates. One important reason to have multiple people meet a candidate is that it allows for independent judgments to be formed by each person. Different interviewers, influenced by their varied life experiences, personalities, and even random chance, will notice different things as they evaluate candidates. However, if the hiring team shares observations too early, they can influence each other's perceptions, reducing the benefit of diverse perspectives.

In extreme cases, this can lead to groupthink – a phenomenon that occurs when a group of people influence each other toward conformity, resulting in irrational decisions. Each member of the hiring team should be encouraged to form a full, independent judgment before integrating them with the team.

Extending The Offer

When extending an offer, it's best to be transparent about the compensation and benefits that are being offered. While some firms allow broad latitude in negotiations, this presents some important challenges that may depend on the candidate's negotiating skill and various factors often impacted by race, ethnicity, and other considerations such as their comfort with assertive bargaining strategies, current life situation, and salary history.

For instance, because there is a persistent wage gap in the United States in which women tend to be paid less than men, even when performing similar or identical work, similarly skilled women are more likely to have been paid less in their prior jobs. That's not an equitable reason to pay them less than a similarly skilled man would be paid if hired instead. Likewise, people of color tend to be paid less than white people, and the same concerns apply to their situation.

Furthermore, unconscious biases can influence how a candidate's negotiation approach affects an employer's perception, with factors like the candidate's gender that can play a role. This is why we have implemented a structured pay scale based strictly on performance, experience, and certifications. This approach is similar to those used by larger organizations, such as Google and the Federal government, which have studied hiring practices in much greater depth than we would ever have the resources to achieve.

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Ultimately, creating an inclusive and fair hiring process is about more than just filling a position – it's also about treating every candidate with respect and integrity. By implementing structured and unbiased approaches, financial advisory firms not only ensure they attract and choose the best talent, but also lay the groundwork for more positive future interactions. And who knows? Building a culture of trust may open the door for other opportunities to work together in the future. As we continue to refine our practices, we believe that each step toward reducing bias is a step toward a stronger, more inclusive team.

Of course, we all make mistakes in letting our biases go undetected or unaddressed, and at times, these biases can influence the systems we establish for fairness. The research in this area continues to evolve quickly, and I know there are valuable insights we may still be missing. Each hiring process offers new lessons, and I hope that by sharing our experiences, we've sparked a conversation that benefits everyone. At our firm, we take pride in our openness to change, – especially when presented with new information. I'm sure many of you have experiences and insights that will enrich our collective understanding of these issues, and I invite you to share your wisdom by commenting below!