After successful completion of the course, students are able to...

Learning Outcomes
- Students are sensitized to unconscious biases in recruiting processes, learn to deal with them and to recognize and avoid them in everyday life.
- As part of the application process, students practice how to present themselves and, above all, their specialist knowledge
- After successfully completing the course, students are able to apply methods of self-presentation in order to appear confident in application situations.
- The added value for students is also the contact with the economy in a clearly defined and structured framework, which supports the first step into professional life.

Subject of course
Unconscious bias and related cognitive effects influence our perception in many areas of life: However, these biases can have serious consequences, especially in recruiting! Effects such as the "halo effect" make people we like appear more competent. Even unconscious, internalized, racist or xenophobic tendencies can influence our assessments simply through a person's last name.
The “Voice of Diversity” course of the TU Career Center links the eLearning “Diversity Skills” of the TU Vienna with the students’ first steps into professional life. The theoretical content learned in advance is applied to the application situation in preparatory practical workshops, documents are checked and empowering measures are jointly developed in order to identify any biases in the application process and counteract them. At the end of the course, there is an anonymous job interview with companies in order to implement the skills learned.
The DEBIAS chat (developed jointly with the Center for Informatics & Society of the Vienna University of Technology) is used for "Voice of Diversity": This helps to anonymize parts of the recruiting process, to structure the interview process, supports the decision-making process through comparable evaluation - and is subject to principles of fairness and equal treatment.
In a multi-stage, anonymous application process, students meet companies - first online via DEBIAS Chat (in which technical and personal facts are briefly asked, but without private details about the person), later in a personal live conversation, where the curtain falls for the first time.

Teaching methods
Anonymous application process & DEBIAS chat, workshop to identify unconscious biases and prevent them in recruiting processes, diversity at the TU Vienna, self-presentation, advice on application processes

All workshops will be held in English.Students can choose between English & German for the anonymous audition.

Thursday,October 20th,2022 - 09:00 - 17:00 Preparatory workshops

Thursday,November 10th,2022 - 08:00-18:00 - Anonymous audition

The following performance by the students is required:
Application process & company research 2 hours
Homework: CVs, processing documents in preparation for the workshop 2 hours
Preparatory workshop on the topic "The application process through the bias lens" by external specialists 2 hours
Preparatory workshop including advice for students on application topics 4 hours
Preparatory workshop technical process DEBIAS Chat 2 hours
Preparation for an interview in the DEBIAS tool 4 hours
Anonymous auditions at the TU Vienna 8 hours
Feedback round & reflection 2 hours
TOTAL 26 hours

Registration is possible until October 2nd, 2022 exclusively via the following website of the TU Career Center: www.tucareerevent.com

No script is offered for the course.Presentations are provided.

Reccommended basic literature:Completion of the Diversity Skills course (1 ECTS) in German (060.022) or in English (060.023).No other specific previous knowledge is required that goes beyond the respective course of study.