Why Bias-Free Recruitment Isn't Possible (and What To Aim For Instead)—Meet Tiffany Ferguson, Principal of Talent Management and Recruitment
Last month, we welcomed Tiffany Ferguson, Principal of Talent Management and Recruitment, to the DevelopWell team!
Before she dives into helping clients source, onboard, and develop talent, we grabbed some time with Tiffany to talk about her career trajectory so far, what she wishes more companies knew about talent management, and why "bias-free" recruitment isn't possible. Read on for her answers!
We're so glad you're here! Tell us a little about your journey so far.
I've gone from the program side of the work to internal ops, with tour stops along the way in many different types of orgs to understand how they operate to advance or inhibit change. Every single organization, industry, and sector has a role to play, and I wanted to know how each played theirs and what they leave on the table.
I’ve worked on a lot of really interesting and exciting new efforts. A lot of my professional experiences began at the point when a group of people came together and said they were ready to do and be something different in order to get results for the communities they were serving. Every single time, it felt exciting!
Whether it was a new startup organization, a funder collaboration, a mayoral office, or a risky initiative inside a longstanding institution—I’ve seen what it takes to build something new and all the thought, strategy, intention, and relationship building that goes into it.
Why were you drawn to DevelopWell for your next role?
Startups and high-growth environments are exciting opportunities to build new things to get different results—but it’s hard to do well. No matter how badly you want it, how smart and effective you are as a leader, no one can do it on their own. Galvanizing teams of people to move toward a goal is really freaking hard.
DevelopWell pitched me a role that would allow me to do my favorite parts of people operations work: finding and cultivating talent to succeed. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and a chance to work with leaders who share my values, principles, and commitment to equity and justice.
I also have a ton of cross-cutting interests. I love cities, I think a lot about economic opportunity and housing, public space and climate change, corporate responsibility and municipal innovation, and so much more. Being at DevelopWell affords me the opportunity to work with clients doing interesting stuff across disciplines.
This is a place that values a deep learning approach and that bodes well for my style, which is very much about understanding what the root problem is and how to block and tackle to resolve it.
What's an opportunity you see right now in the talent development space?
Employers have a chance to rethink how they onboard and manage early career talent. It can feel daunting when old onboarding and management tactics don’t meet folks’ expectations for what they want out of work. We have a generation entering the workforce at a dizzying time when public sentiment about work is uninspiring at best and at worst, antagonistic.
We also can’t forget that remote and hybrid work culture don't engender the kind of stability, connection, and trust that being in-person does. Because of this, employers have to double down on clear and consistent internal storytelling about the mission and vision everyone is working towards. It needs to be clear that employee growth and development not only helps the organization succeed, but that the organization is invested in the employee’s own interests.
I’d sum this up as managing and calibrating expectations. It’s hard to develop people who aren’t clear that you care about them or understand what they do. Showing up for employees is a frontline manager's daily job, and it should be one of the executive team’s people priorities. It’s not a thing you do only when you hire someone or check in with them annually. It takes constant engagement and if you don’t take it seriously, you risk turnover or worse, untapped potential.
Another opportunity is more leadership training for both managers and individual contributors. Talent dev shouldn’t only be about building and strengthening employee skills to get their jobs done well. Doing a job well is often narrowly defined as what’s listed in a job description, and leadership is too often relegated to people in certain upper level positions.
I see a lot of room for cross-training folks to make sure everyone has the skills to manage up, down, and across, present solutions and not just problems, and see around corners. If we need more leadership skills, why not train people in it and set the expectation that it’s required? If we all think of our work as being leaders—no matter where we are on the org chart—and we actively cultivate that capability and expectation in every position, we can bring our workplace cultures into the 21st century.
What do you wish more companies knew about recruitment and talent management?
It starts way before the job description is posted!
It really helps to put yourself in the shoes of a candidate and prioritize their experience alongside internal processes. We can get so focused on what we need as a company that we forget about what candidates need from us. Candidate experiences have deteriorated in the last few years as applicant pools have grown exponentially and more remote opportunities have appeared. You have more people applying to more jobs and recruitment teams being treated as bank tellers rather than business partners.
Finding the right candidate is tough and while we’ve gained many efficiencies with machine learning and generative AI, there remains a set of critical human touchpoints in these processes. I wish there was more investment, care, and creativity in those human-to-human points, whether it's the auto replies upon receiving an application, ongoing correspondence throughout the interview process, or declination correspondence with or without feedback.
I also wish people knew, particularly in high-growth environments or capacity-strapped teams, that it typically takes six months for someone to onboard. I actually like to tell people that it takes a full year just to manage their expectations.
Once you understand your job, the people you work with, and have a clearer picture of how things get done, it takes more time to feel comfortable and secure in your ability to contribute not only what’s being asked, but in ways that aren’t as explicit or obvious. When someone joins the team, you do not increase your capacity by 100%! People overestimate how much value new hires can add in their first 30 days, and we should be mindful of the time we give people to learn and acclimate.
Can you share some best practices for creating an inclusive, bias-free recruitment process?
I don’t want to be controversial here, but "bias-free" is a misnomer. People have biases. We all do. Our brains love them because they help us make this infinitely complex world we live in a wee bit simpler to navigate—even if those biases, assumptions, and prejudices aren’t true or just. The best we can do is a bias-conscious process.
If that feels uncomfortable to hear, then it sounds like you’ve just found a great starting place for your learning journey! I’d hate for someone to try to design a bias-free process without first understanding that we aren’t able to eliminate biases with the snap of a finger.
To that end, we want to design a process that reveals bias, demonstrates our self-awareness and conscientiousness about it, and promotes behaviors and practices that isolate the biases from true merit-based assessment approaches.
To get ahead of this, define what you’re looking for in a candidate. Before you write or finalize a job description, you’ve got to paint a picture of the candidate profile you believe will best match what you need. Don’t wait until you have candidates to voice all the prejudices you have. That’s not only wrong and lazy, but it’s incredibly inefficient and demonstrates you didn’t spend enough time upfront defining what you needed. Ask now: What are all of my preferences? And why do they matter for the position?
For example, in an intake discussion of candidate preferences, someone might say they want someone who is "more seasoned." You might assume you know what that is or what it looks like. Don’t assume. Instead, you’ve gotta explore and interrogate what that means. Get precise. Is "seasoned" a proxy for the number of years of work experience? Is it a euphemism for "older" and therefore, not "younger" or part of Gen Z? Or is "seasoned" needed because the role requires someone who can work with less direction?
In many ways, our preferences say a lot about our individual biases, so it’s good practice to get to the root of the preference.
Other practices include creating rubrics for scoring, standardizing interview questions and intro talking points, video screening interviews, and creating a psychologically safe space for interviewers to share their feedback, which can often help people grapple with their biases outright instead of channeling them unconsciously.
We've loved getting your insights about recruitment and work in general! And now we want to know: Who are you outside of work?
I’m infinitely curious about how the world works, how people make it work, and the stories we tell ourselves about how it actually works or doesn’t. I like thinking about things from a 10,000 foot level. I’m a big-time student, observer, and teacher.
I studied cultural anthropology and am a trained contemporary modern dancer. I also have a master’s degree in city planning. I grew up in Maryland, just outside of DC. I love dance, roller skating, traveling, and lately, running and reading non-fiction.
Any parting words for us?
The work may be hard, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have joy.