Applied

Applied is a behavioural science start up that helps reduce unconscious bias in hiring. Applied is the first tech spin out of the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team, developed in partnership with Harvard Professor Iris Bohnet. Applied removes unconscious bias from recruitment processes so that companies can focus on finding the best person for every job, regardless of their background.

The Applied platform was built to make it easy for teams to hire without bias. At the early stages of the company while still working with the Behavioural Insights Team, they conducted a large scale experiment which tested CVs against Applied’s signature work sample sift. They found that 60% of top scoring candidates are rejected in a standard CV sift. In more recent research, Applied found that STEM companies that use Applied had a higher chance of hiring someone from a minority ethnic background.

Of those who have gotten a job through Applied so far:
60% have gone to women or people who identify as non-binary
Over 25% have gone to people who identify as Black, Asian, Mixed, or Other
6% have gone to people who declare a disability
40% to those who come from families where neither parent went to university, and
17% to those who had free school meals (in the UK)

Over 200,000 candidates have applied to jobs through Applied, over 1,000,000 unbiased judgements have been made through the platform, and well over 6,000 users champion to help make the platform better every single day. Of particular importance to the team, data suggests over 2,500 candidates have been hired into roles that they otherwise wouldn’t have were it not for the platform, either because they wouldn’t have applied if it were through a traditional process (see Shruti) or statistically they would have been overlooked through conscious or unconscious bias.