‘Blind recruitment’ is a way of removing some personal information from a CV or application before it is reviewed, with the aim of reducing the risk of unconscious bias. But how does it work in practice, and what information should you remove?
By hiding information such as a candidate's name, age, address, or education history, recruiters can focus more closely on the skills and experience that are relevant to the role.
Blind recruitment isn't a complete solution to unconscious bias, and it won't remove bias from every stage of the hiring process. However, used as part of a structured recruitment process, it can help employers make more consistent, skills-focused decisions.
What is blind recruitment?
Blind recruitment is a recruitment approach where identifying or potentially biasing information is removed or hidden from an application before a particular stage of the selection process.
The exact information removed will depend on the role and the recruitment process. For example, an employer might remove a candidate's name and address but retain their qualifications and relevant experience.
The aim is to make it easier for recruiters to assess candidates against objective, role-specific criteria rather than making assumptions based on personal information.
What is unconscious bias?
Unconscious bias occurs when our experiences, assumptions, or background influence how we perceive or make decisions about other people without us necessarily being aware of it.
In recruitment, this could mean making assumptions about a candidate based on their name, where they live, where they studied, or the organisations they've worked for.
Blind screening can reduce the amount of potentially biasing information a recruiter sees, but it shouldn't be viewed as a way to eliminate unconscious bias altogether. Structured criteria, consistent scoring, and diverse recruitment panels can also help create a fairer process.
What should you remove from a CV?
There isn't one set list of information that every employer should remove. Instead, consider which information is necessary to assess the candidate against the requirements of the role.
A simple redaction checklist could include:
- Name: Consider removing the candidate's name where it isn't needed at the initial screening stage.
- Location and address: Remove their home address and consider whether the location of previous work or education is genuinely relevant to the assessment.
- Education provider names: Consider removing the names of schools, colleges, or universities if the name itself isn't relevant to the role and could influence perceptions of the candidate.
- Employer names: Where the organisation itself isn't relevant to assessing the candidate, you could describe it by sector instead, such as ‘accountancy firm’, ‘insurer’, or ‘supermarket’.
- Hobbies and interests: Consider whether these provide relevant evidence for the role. If they don't, removing them can help keep the assessment focused on job-related criteria.
The key question is: does the recruiter need this information to assess whether the candidate can do the job?
If the answer is no, consider whether it needs to be included at the screening stage.
What are the different levels of blind recruitment?
Blind recruitment doesn't have to mean completely removing every piece of identifying information. Different approaches may be appropriate at different stages or for different types of roles.
| Approach | What it means | When it may be useful |
|---|
| Name-blind | The candidate's name and other obvious identifiers are removed | A simple first step for most recruitment processes |
| Education-blind | School, college, or university names are removed | Particularly useful where educational prestige isn't relevant to the role |
| Company-blind | Previous employer names are replaced with sectors or descriptions | Useful where the organisation's brand could influence perceptions |
| Fully blind | A wider range of identifying information is removed | Potentially useful for early-stage, skills-focused screening |
| Stage-specific | Information is hidden only at a particular stage, such as CV screening | Useful where some information becomes relevant later |
| End-to-end | Identifying information is restricted throughout much of the recruitment process | More complex and generally only appropriate where there is a clear reason for doing so |
For apprenticeships and entry-level roles, a skills-focused or name- and education-blind approach can be particularly useful because candidates may have limited employment history. This can help employers focus on potential, transferable skills, and evidence rather than the perceived prestige of someone's educational background.
For experienced hires, previous employers, qualifications, professional memberships, and sector experience may be directly relevant to the role. In these cases, completely removing that information could make it harder to assess candidates appropriately.
The right approach is therefore to blind the information that could introduce unnecessary bias while retaining the evidence needed to assess whether someone meets the requirements of the role.
How can you implement blind CV screening?
Blind recruitment works best when it is part of a structured process rather than simply removing names from CVs.
1. Define who does what
Decide who will redact or anonymise applications and who will assess them.
Ideally, the person removing identifying information shouldn't be the person making the initial assessment. This creates a clear separation between the administrative process and the selection decision.
2. Define the skills you need
Before looking at applications, identify the skills, behaviours, knowledge, and experience that are genuinely required for the role.
For example:
- Good teamworking skills
- Strong IT skills
- Ability to work independently and manage your own caseload
Keep the criteria specific enough that different reviewers can apply them consistently.
3. Ask candidates for standardised evidence
Rather than relying entirely on an open-ended CV, ask candidates to provide a set amount of evidence against each criterion.
For example, you could ask candidates to provide up to 250 words explaining how they meet each of the three key criteria.
This gives every candidate the same opportunity to demonstrate their skills and makes comparisons more consistent.
4. Use a scoring system
Create a simple scoring system before reviewing applications.
For example:
| Score | Evidence |
|---|
| 0 | No evidence provided |
| 1 | Limited evidence |
| 2 | Some relevant evidence |
| 3 | Strong evidence |
| 4 | Excellent, specific evidence |
Agree what each score means before screening begins, so that reviewers aren't changing the criteria as they go.
5. Set a pass threshold
Decide in advance what score candidates need to achieve to progress.
This could be an overall score or a minimum score against each essential criterion.
Having a defined threshold makes the process more consistent and reduces the risk of making decisions based on an overall ‘feeling’ about a candidate.
You could also involve colleagues from different departments in the screening process. A diverse group of reviewers can bring different perspectives and help challenge assumptions, provided everyone is using the same assessment criteria.
How can you measure whether blind recruitment is working?
If you're introducing blind recruitment, it's worth measuring what changes rather than simply assuming it has improved your process.
Start by establishing a baseline using your existing recruitment data. You can then compare future campaigns using the same measures.
| Metric | What it measures | How to use it |
|---|
| Shortlist diversity | The demographic profile of candidates reaching the shortlist | Compare with your baseline and the wider applicant pool |
| Interview-to-offer parity | Whether candidates from different groups progress from interview to offer at similar rates | Look for significant differences that may need investigation |
| Time to hire | How long it takes to recruit someone | Check whether additional screening steps affect recruitment efficiency |
| Quality-of-hire proxy | Early performance, retention, or probation outcomes | Assess whether a more skills-focused process is identifying suitable candidates |
| Candidate experience | How candidates perceive the fairness and accessibility of the process | Use candidate feedback alongside quantitative measures |
Be careful when interpreting the results. A change in shortlist diversity doesn't necessarily prove that blind recruitment caused the change. Other factors, such as where the role was advertised, the size of the applicant pool, or the assessment criteria, can also affect recruitment outcomes.
What are the UK legal and ethical considerations?
Blind recruitment can support a fairer recruitment process, but it doesn't replace an employer's legal responsibilities.
Under the Equality Act 2010, employers must not discriminate against applicants because of protected characteristics, including age, disability, race, sex, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. This applies to decisions about who is offered a job as well as other parts of recruitment.
There are also data protection considerations. The ICO's data minimisation principle says that personal data should be adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary for the purpose for which it is being processed.
This doesn't mean removing everything from an application. If a qualification, certification, professional registration, or specific experience is genuinely required for a role, candidates still need to be able to demonstrate it.
The principle is simple: only use the information you need to make a fair and informed recruitment decision.
It's also important to keep equality monitoring separate from the information used to make recruitment decisions. This can help ensure that people involved in interviewing or deciding who to hire don't have access to unnecessary equality monitoring information.
If you're unsure about how discrimination or data protection law applies to your recruitment process, seek appropriate HR or legal advice.
Diversity also boosts performance
Using a blind recruitment process can contribute to a more consistent and skills-focused approach to hiring. Greater inclusivity and diversity can also benefit organisations more broadly.
According to research by Bourke and Espedido (2019), teams with inclusive leaders were:
- 17% more likely to report they were a high-performing team
- 20% more likely to say they made high-quality decisions
- 29% more likely to report they were behaving collaboratively
The research also found that a 10% improvement in the perception of inclusion increased work attendance by an average of nearly one day per employee.
Blind recruitment is only one part of creating a more inclusive workplace. But by removing unnecessary information, defining objective criteria, and giving candidates a consistent opportunity to demonstrate their skills, employers can take a practical step towards a fairer recruitment process.
Build a fairer recruitment process
Creating a more inclusive recruitment process doesn't have to mean completely changing the way you hire. From defining skills-based criteria to supporting you with apprenticeship recruitment, the right approach can help you find talented people based on their potential and suitability for the role.
If you're looking to build a more diverse team through apprenticeships, Kaplan can help. Speak to our apprenticeship recruitment team to find out how we can support your organisation.