It turns out that personal interviews tended to result in the hiring affable, good looking men, and lock out some great players who didn’t fit a visual image of what an orchestra player should look like. Without the screen, the personal, visual impression of the candidate is so powerful that it actually affects the sound that the committee heard. They thought they were selecting the best audition player, but when they used the screen, and really were able to listen to the audition, they heard differently. The human mind, your mind and mine, is filled with powerful biases. Some of those biases are useful for making quick decisions, others are just misleading. Its important to manipulate your process to screen out the misleading stuff and get the good stuff.
via “Blink” and the Art of Hiring the Best – Assembla Consulting: Accelerate Your Software Development.