Macfarlanes joins Clifford Chance and Mayer Brown in adopting CV-blind recruitment policy

Macfarlanes has become the third firm to adopt a "CV-blind" policy to combat unconscious bias and elitism in its recruitment.

The top 30 City firm joins Clifford Chance and Mayer Brown in their use of CV-blind policies, which see assessors interview candidates without any prior knowledge of their educational backgrounds. However, in the initial stages of the selection process, recruiters still look at candidates' CVs.

As reported by Legal Week, Macfarlanes trialled the policy for its February and March open days and will now be applying it to vacation scheme candidates. The firm's graduate recruitment partner, Seán  Lavin, clarified that Macfarlanes is "almost certain" to extend the CV-blind policy to its trainee recruitment.

Lavin commented: "CVs are still an important part of the recruitment process. However, we did not feel that there was any need for partners to have access to a candidate's CV when they are assessing the merits of a candidate in an interview setting. Interviewing candidates CV-blind reduces the possibility of bias for or against candidates from particular backgrounds."