The most reliable way to reduce bias in interviews is to stop improvising. Decide the criteria before you meet anyone, ask every candidate the same job-related questions in the same order, score each answer on a written scale, and have each interviewer score alone before the group talks. None of this needs software or a budget. It needs discipline, and in Australia it also keeps you on the right side of anti-discrimination law.
This guide covers how bias creeps into interviews, a step-by-step process a small business can run next week, the questions to avoid, and how to check that it is working.
TL;DR
- Unstructured “chat” interviews let first impressions, similarity and gut feel decide the outcome. Written criteria and identical questions remove most of that room.
- Score independently before any discussion. The first person to speak otherwise sets the view for everyone else.
- Under the Fair Work Act, refusing to hire someone because of a protected attribute is unlawful, and the list was widened in December 2022.
- Keep records of why each candidate was ranked as they were. Documented reasons are your best defence if a decision is challenged.
- An interview is one tool, not the whole assessment. Pair it with work samples, reference checks and, where suitable, other job-relevant measures.
Table of Contents
- Where bias enters an interview
- Why gut feel is a business risk, not just a fairness issue
- The Australian legal lines
- A seven-step process to reduce interview bias
- One tool among several
- How we approach it
- Common mistakes when you try to fix bias
- How to tell whether it is working
- Where a flat-fee recruiter fits
- FAQ
- Sources
Where bias enters an interview
Bias is not a character flaw confined to bad managers. The Western Australian Government’s guidance on managing unconscious bias in recruitment notes that preconceived ideas of the ideal applicant, first impressions and views about personal characteristics unrelated to the job can all colour how an applicant is assessed. Good people do this without noticing.
The patterns below show up again and again in small business hiring.
| Bias | What it looks like in the room | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Affinity bias | You warm to the candidate who went to your school, follows your football team or reminds you of yourself | Score against written criteria, not rapport |
| Halo effect | One strong trait, such as a polished manner, lifts every other rating | Score each question separately, and one competency at a time |
| First impression bias | The first five minutes decide the verdict and the rest is used to confirm it | Fixed question order and written evidence per answer |
| Stereotyping | Assumptions about age, family plans, mobility or background shape the questions you ask | Brief everyone and ask the same questions of all |
| Anchoring in the panel | The first opinion voiced becomes the group opinion | Independent scoring before discussion |
| “Culture fit” | A vague feeling that someone is “not quite right” | Replace it with named, observable values and behaviours |
The common thread is that each one substitutes a feeling for evidence. Reducing bias means making the evidence harder to ignore.
Why gut feel is a business risk, not just a fairness issue
The Australian Human Rights Commission’s step-by-step guide to preventing discrimination in recruitment lists a simple checklist: select the person best suited to the job, keep records of your decisions, set aside personal bias, myths and stereotypes, and focus on the essential requirements of the role. Notice how much of that is about paperwork and criteria rather than good intentions.
If an unsuccessful candidate challenges a decision, “we just preferred the other person” is a weak answer. “Candidate B scored 4 out of 5 on each of the six criteria, with notes, and candidate A scored 2 on the two that matter most” is a strong one. That record is also what makes the decision better in the first place.
There is a performance case too. Research summarised by an Australian business publication reports that the bias effect fell from d=.59 in unstructured formats to d=.23 in structured ones. Another Australian hiring scorecard guide notes that unstructured interviews have a low validity coefficient, around .19 in some 2022 re-analyses, compared with considerably higher figures for structured methods. Put plainly, a friendly chat is among the weakest ways to predict who will do the job well.
The Australian legal lines
Under the Fair Work Act, an employer must not take adverse action against a prospective employee, which includes refusing to hire them, because of a protected attribute. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s list includes race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family or carer’s responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction and social origin. Breastfeeding, gender identity and intersex status were added in December 2022, so any interview guide written before then needs updating.
This is general information, not legal advice. If you are facing a specific complaint or a borderline situation, talk to an employment lawyer or call the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Questions to leave out
The risk is rarely a hostile question. It is the friendly one: “Do you have kids?”, “Where are you originally from?”, “When are you planning to retire?”. A legal-information site such as Sprintlaw groups the risky areas into age, gender and relationship status, pregnancy and carer responsibilities, health, religion and ethnicity, political opinion, criminal record, finances and personal social media, and suggests safer alternatives for each.
The practical rule is simple: ask about the requirements of the job, never about the person’s life outside it.
| Instead of asking | Ask |
|---|---|
| “Do you have young children? Who looks after them?” | “This role needs you on site from 7.30 am. Is that workable for you?” |
| “How old are you?” / “When do you plan to retire?” | “What are you looking for in your next three to five years?” |
| “Do you have any health problems?” | “Can you perform the essential duties of this role, with or without adjustments? Do you need any adjustments to the interview itself?” |
| “Where are you from originally?” | “Do you have the right to work in Australia?” |
| “Are you planning to start a family?” | Nothing. It has no bearing on the role. |
The Human Rights Commission’s recruitment and selection guidelines also warn against stereotyped or discriminatory language in advertisements, such as “Salesman” or a stated age range, and say the ad should match the selection criteria. Bias reduction starts before the interview, with the job ad.
A seven-step process to reduce interview bias
You can run this with two or three interviewers and a shared spreadsheet.
1. Define the job before you meet anyone
Write down five or six essential requirements: skills, experience and behaviours the person must demonstrate in the first year. Separate the essential from the nice to have. If you cannot explain why a criterion matters to the work, remove it. This is also where “culture fit” gets replaced by something observable. Our guide to values-based recruiting shows how to turn company values into behaviours you can actually assess.
2. Screen on the same basis for everyone
Use a short phone or video screen with identical questions, focused on availability, pay expectations, right to work and one or two core skills. A 15 to 20 minute screening script keeps this consistent and prevents the early “chemistry” judgement that sends one candidate forward and not another.
Where you can, review résumés with names, photos and dates of birth hidden, or at least score against your criteria before looking at anything else.
3. Write the questions in advance
Ask about past behaviour, in the past tense: “Tell me about a time you had to manage three competing deadlines. What did you do and what happened?” Pair these with a small number of situational questions for the role. Use copyable structured interview prompts and a five-step rubric if you would rather not start from a blank page. For technical roles, see the engineer interview questions as an example of fair, role-specific checks.
Small business owners often worry that this will feel stiff. The opposite tends to be true: candidates generally feel more respected when the process is evidently fair and focused on their skills rather than on irrelevant small talk.
4. Build a scoring rubric
For each question, describe what a weak, adequate and strong answer looks like, then score from 1 to 5. Anchor the scale with examples. “Strong” for a prioritisation question might mean the candidate names the trade-offs, says what they dropped and reports a measurable result. Without anchors, a score of 4 means something different to every interviewer.
5. Use a panel, and brief it
Two or three interviewers are better than one, because different people notice different things and one person’s blind spot is less likely to decide the outcome. Brief the panel on the criteria, the question order and who asks what. Remind them to avoid assumptions about family status, mobility or age, and offer adjustments for disability proactively when you schedule the interview, as the Human Rights Commission guidance recommends.
6. Take notes and score alone first
Write down what the candidate said, not what you concluded. Evidence first, rating second. Then each interviewer submits scores and notes before anyone speaks. This blocks the first-mover anchor, where one panellist’s opinion quietly becomes everyone’s. Only then discuss, starting with the biggest score gaps and asking each person to point to the evidence.
7. Decide against the criteria and keep the record
Add up the scores, discuss differences, and make the call against the written criteria. Store the scorecards, notes and final reasoning. If the scores point one way and your instinct points another, treat that as a prompt to examine your instinct, not to override the data. Ask yourself what, specifically, you are reacting to, and whether it relates to the job.
One tool among several
Structured interviews are strong, but not sufficient alone. A discussion of combining selection methods reports that a structured interview plus a cognitive or work-sample measure pushed composite validity above .60 in the classic research. The practical meaning: let the interview do what it does well, and add a short work task, a reference check with set questions, or a trial where it suits the role.
Some employers now use AI tools to screen or summarise applications. These tools can carry bias of their own, so whoever uses them needs to understand their limits. If your team is starting down that path, a practical playbook on AI training for HR teams is a reasonable place to begin. Whatever you adopt, a human should still score against your criteria and keep the record.
If you use psychometric tools or background checks, apply them to every finalist, not just the ones you are unsure about, and keep them tied to the role. Our guide to background checks in Australia explains what is reasonable and what needs the candidate’s consent.
How we approach it
We recruit permanent staff for small and mid-sized businesses across Australia and New Zealand, and the same pattern turns up repeatedly: the employers who struggle most are the ones who rely on a single conversation and a feeling. They are not careless. They are busy, they have never been given a template, and a traditional commission model gives them little reason to slow down and structure the process.
Our view is that fairness and quality are the same project. When you define the role clearly, assess every candidate against the same criteria and document the reasons, you hire for what the job requires and you widen the pool of people who can succeed in it. That is why we put effort into screening scripts, rubrics and clear role definitions rather than relying on gut feel. It is also why we publish practical material on diversity hiring in Australia and recruitment transparency.
If you take one thing from this guide, make it independent scoring. It costs nothing, takes minutes, and changes the quality of the conversation that follows.
— Josh Townsend
Common mistakes when you try to fix bias
- Changing the questions but not the scoring. Identical questions help only if the answers are rated against the same standard.
- Letting the most senior person speak first. Everyone else adjusts. Have the most senior person score and speak last.
- Treating training as the solution. Awareness of bias is useful, but process does the heavy lifting. Build the safeguards into the steps.
- Over-weighting the interview. Candidates who interview well are not always those who perform well. Test the work itself where you can.
- Skipping the record. If you did not write it down, you cannot show it, and you cannot learn from it.
- Improvising follow-ups. Probing is fine, but use the same neutral prompts for everyone: “What was your role?”, “What was the result?”
How to tell whether it is working
You do not need a data team. After three or four hires, check the following:
- Score spread. If every candidate scores 4 on everything, your rubric is not discriminating. Tighten the anchors.
- Panel agreement. Large gaps between interviewers point to unclear criteria or a bias worth discussing.
- Who reaches each stage. Look at who applied, who was screened in and who was offered. Unexplained drop-offs deserve a look at the criteria used at that step.
- First-year outcomes. Compare interview scores with how people are performing at three and six months. Adjust criteria that did not predict anything.
- Candidate feedback. Ask finalists, successful or not, whether the process felt clear and fair.
Where a flat-fee recruiter fits
A structured process takes time, and many small businesses have none to spare. Our Recruit service starts with an engagement fee of $895, with a placement fee of $3,900 to $5,000 once you hire. Recruit+ carries a $2,495 engagement fee and a $5,000 to $6,000 placement fee. You pay a fixed amount rather than a percentage of salary, and the fee depends on the salary band of the role. Optional extras include a Psychometric Evaluation at $199 per candidate and a criminal check at $129. If a hire does not work out, a Replacement Campaign is $1,000, as set out on our candidate replacement insurance page.
Full details are on our flat-fee pricing page. If you are still weighing the approach, our small business hiring best practices guide covers the wider process, and you can start from our fixed fee recruitment page when you are ready to brief a role.
FAQ
What is the quickest way to reduce bias in interviews?
Ask every candidate the same job-related questions in the same order, and score each answer on a written 1 to 5 scale. Have every interviewer submit scores before any discussion. These two habits remove much of the influence of first impressions and group pressure.
Is unconscious bias training enough?
No. Training raises awareness, but bias persists when the process still depends on gut feel. Build safeguards into the process itself: written criteria, structured questions, independent scoring and documented decisions.
Which interview questions are unlawful in Australia?
No question is banned by name. The law prohibits adverse action, including not hiring, because of a protected attribute under the Fair Work Act, such as age, sex, pregnancy, family or carer’s responsibilities, disability or religion. Questions about those topics create risk because they suggest the answer influenced the decision. Keep questions to the essential requirements of the job, and seek advice from an employment lawyer on grey areas.
Do structured interviews feel cold to candidates?
Generally not. They feel fair and focused, and candidates usually appreciate knowing what is being assessed. You can still open with a friendly introduction and explain the format. Just keep the scored questions consistent.
Sources
- Protection from discrimination at work, Fair Work Ombudsman
- A step-by-step guide to preventing discrimination in recruitment, Australian Human Rights Commission
- Recruitment and selection guidelines, Australian Human Rights Commission
- The Shopify Hiring Scorecard, Ecommerce Circle
- The Paid Trial Test, Ecommerce Circle
- Why combine selection methods?, Newman HR
- Illegal interview questions, Sprintlaw
- AI Training for Employees, tekRESCUE AI
