How Unfamiliarity Bias Affects Who Gets Promoted
Have you ever been passed over for a promotion, only to have your company opt for an external candidate who has less relevant experience?
Unfortunately, this happens all the time.
Three of my friends recently faced this situation or watched a spouse go through it.
So…why does this happen? What causes companies to frequently opt for external candidates instead of choosing the known quantity: an internal candidate who has already proven themselves and knows the company inside and out?
Why do companies spurn the bird in the hand to reach for the bird in the bush?
Unfamiliarity Bias
I have a working theory. Let’s call it “unfamiliarity bias”: the tendency to overvalue the capability of an unknown hire compared to an internal candidate.
Employers often overvalue the resume skills they see on paper for external applicants while undervaluing the tangible skills they’ve witnessed from internal applicants.
Organizations fall prey to this unfamiliarity bias for three reasons:
- They’ve seen the weaknesses of internal candidates. After working with someone for even a few months, you get the chance to see that person’s downsides. These memories often fog managers’ opinions of employees.
- They only see the external candidate’s highlight reel. When an external hire applies for a job, the only thing the company knows about that person is what they showcase in their resume, interview, and references. In other words, the company sees a carefully curated image of that person (no different than the curated lives we see on our friends’ Instagram pages). Hiring managers are effectively comparing an external candidate’s highlight reel to an internal candidate’s regular life: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
- They’ve only seen the internal candidate utilize a narrow subset of their skills. Why? Because the company hired that person to do a specific job, and they’re doing that job. For example, a customer service rep (CSR) is paid to provide excellent service, not to lead a team of employees. If that CSR applies for a management position, senior managers will often talk about how they haven’t seen the applicant demonstrate the skills required in this new role—but that’s because the applicant is currently paid to do a different job.
Let’s unpack what unfamiliarity bias looks like with two recent real examples I’ve witnessed. (Note: I’ve changed the names of the people below.)
Story #1: Kelly
Kelly is an ambitious graphic designer. After three years with her company, she decided she was ready for a new challenge, so she talked to the company executives about her desire to be promoted. They told Kelly she’d get promoted soon and there were “lots of opportunities” at the firm.
A couple of months later, huzzah! A management position opened up. As fate would have it, the position was for the lead of her same team, so her experience lined up perfectly.
However, the company decided not to even post the position internally. They filled the role with an outside hire — someone with less experience.
Kelly is now watching the external hire bumble through the job—running a team he barely understands—while she continues to crush it in her role. She’s wondering if she’ll need to jump ship to a different company if she wants a promotion and a raise.
Senior managers are effectively comparing an external candidate’s highlight reel to each internal candidate’s regular life: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Story #2: Mark
Mark is a customer service representative with seven years of prior management experience. He heard about an opening at his company for a Team Lead role in an adjacent department (one he works with a lot).
Several managers told Mark he was a strong candidate for the role, so he applied for the promotion with high hopes.
Unfortunately, the company turned down Mark for the role because he “hadn’t demonstrated leadership” in his current role and always seemed too busy with his own workload to lead his peers.
The company didn’t receive any strong external candidates for the position, so they decided to leave the role unfilled until they received a good external candidate.
Meanwhile, Mark wonders if and when he’ll ever get another shot at a promotion.
How Can Organizations Overcome This Bias?
When a new role opens up, hiring managers and executives truly want to find the best person for the job, and a lot hinges on them making the correct choice (e.g., productivity, employee satisfaction, client satisfaction, company profitability).
No one is trying to be malicious when choosing who to promote, and decisions like this are really hard. (I know from personal experience as a hiring manager.)
That said, biases like this impact people unconsciously and cause them to make suboptimal decisions for all of the reasons stated earlier.
Now, don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying promotions should always go to internal applicants. That would also be a mistake. External hires bring fresh perspectives that drive innovation and diverse experience that expands the company’s talent pool.
The key is to avoid unconscious bias and make the correct decision for the situation.
What Hiring Managers Can Do to Avoid Unfamiliarity Bias
If you’re a hiring manager or senior leader who determines promotions, avoid this trap by following these tips:
- Acknowledge unfamiliarity bias. Just like most biases, awareness is the first step: you need to realize you may fall prey to it.
- Avoid comparing an external candidate’s highlight reel to an internal candidate’s regular life. Explore the weaknesses of external candidates by asking tough questions in interviews and speaking to their references about times when that person made a mistake or a poor decision.
- Refuse to hire anyone without knowing their downside. Everyone has one. You need to find it and ensure it’s one you can accept. If you don’t learn the person’s weaknesses before hiring them, you’ll definitely learn them once they’re on the job, which is a much worse time to discover a weakness.
- Recognize that internal candidates have been paid to do a fundamentally different job than this new role. I’m a huge believer in the idea that leadership is not tied to a role or title. You can (and should) lead from anywhere in an organization. However, it’s unfair to expect an individual contributor to spend the same amount of time leading, mentoring, and influencing the team that an existing manager can spend doing those same things. You’re paying the employee to perform a distinctly different job, and their time is limited.
- Appoint an internal advocate. If you want to become known as an organization where employees can grow their careers, give internal hires a leg up in the promotion process. Appoint an advocate who can remind the hiring team of the person’s strengths and successes. (And if no one on the hiring team is excited to advocate for that person, then maybe that candidate isn’t the right fit after all.)
- Determine whether insider knowledge or an outsider perspective is more important for the position. If the role requires fresh insight that you don’t think can be found within the firm, it may indeed be best to bring in an outside hire. They may be able to generate new ideas based on their prior work experience. On the flipside, if the role requires extensive internal knowledge about how your teams and systems operate, an internal candidate may be best.
What Applicants Can Do to Overcome Unfamiliarity Bias
If you’re an internal employee applying for a promotion, here are a few tips:
- Remind the hiring team of your strengths. Make the choice easier for them by compiling a list of your recent accomplishments. Remind them what you’ve done.
- Provide a copy of your resume. The hiring team likely hasn’t seen your resume since you were hired, and they may have forgotten your past experience. Don’t let them forget about the job knowledge you acquired before joining the company.
- Find an internal advocate. Talk to others in the company who’ve seen what you can do. Ask them to advocate for you for this promotion. It’s especially powerful if you can find an executive or director who will advocate for you. Ask their advice on how you can put your best foot forward with the hiring manager.
No one wants to be passed over for a promotion, but it happens every day. Often, promotions are given to others for good reasons: someone else is simply more skilled, knowledgeable, or experienced.
But unfamiliarity bias is not a good reason. Use the tips above to avoid falling prey to this faulty human bias.
*Thanks to Thaddeus Bradley and Jon Fulcher for their contributions to this concept.
