While EO training is essential for people involved in recruitment and selection, it can also operate as a smokescreen. In reality, there is no quick-fix for discrimination and the eradication of entrenched values and beliefs that disadvantage women. The development of a sophisticated understanding of how gender bias is activated, fostered and dismantled moves beyond basic EO training.

Many people can recite basic EO principles, but human preferences arise when the responsibility of keeping personal biases in check becomes cumbersome and it is simply easier to act out according to one’s preferences.

Relying on our personal experiences and values when making a decision may be human nature, but it is often not legally appropriate during recruitment and selection.

In addition, EO training does not guarantee that personal and sensitive information that comes to light during recruitment and selection will be discarded. This is especially the case when the human factor is allowed to impinge on the process.

Human beings are naturally inquisitive, and more often than not interested in knowing everything there is to know, rather than what it is that they are entitled to know. “Guilty knowledge” and the stereotypical assumptions that follow, while rarely recorded, can often unfairly influence decision-making during recruitment and selection.

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