Psychology & Behavioral Science
Upscend Team
-January 21, 2026
9 min read
This article explains how hiring for curiosity (CQ) can advance DEI by increasing cognitive diversity, reducing bias, and improving inclusion. It provides practical tools—blind scoring, structured interviews, inclusive prompts—plus a pairing model with competency frameworks, case examples with measurable gains, and mitigation tactics for common pitfalls.
When teams prioritize curiosity alongside skills, they unlock a pathway where cq and dei reinforce each other. In our experience, deciding to hire for curiosity is not an either/or choice between DEI and performance; instead, it can be a deliberate strategy to broaden perspectives and reduce cognitive blind spots.
This article explains practical ways to align cq and dei in hiring design, offers step-by-step implementation options, shares case examples where curiosity-focused hiring advanced DEI outcomes, and warns of pitfalls that can create new biases. You'll get checklists and concrete interventions you can test immediately.
Curiosity Quotient (CQ) measures a candidate's propensity to ask questions, seek novel information, and test assumptions. When organizations place value on cq and dei together, they intentionally recruit people who surface alternative viewpoints and challenge the status quo.
We've found that teams with higher aggregate curiosity perform better on complex tasks because they embrace exploratory learning and iterative problem solving. That same trait encourages psychological safety: people who model inquiry lower perceived risk for others to speak up, which advances inclusion.
Curiosity reduces bias by prompting hypothesis-testing behaviors instead of snap judgments. Cognitive diversity – different ways of thinking – is distinct from demographic diversity but is complementary. Hiring for curiosity expands the range of cognitive approaches and makes demographic difference more actionable.
Key mechanisms include:
Asking "how does hiring for curiosity reduce bias?" reframes selection from a static skill match to a dynamic learning orientation. cq and dei alignment targets recruiting behaviors that counteract heuristics like affinity bias and confirmation bias.
In practice, curious candidates are more likely to:
We recommend scoring observable behaviors that indicate curiosity: depth of follow-up questions, evidence of cross-domain learning, and openness to uncertainty. These signals are less correlated with demographic proxies (school, network, accent) than résumé features, making them powerful for equitable selection.
When teams adopt blind scoring for curiosity measures, the correlation between demographic characteristics and hiring outcomes weakens, supporting diversity through CQ.
Operationalizing cq and dei requires concrete tools. Three high-leverage interventions are blind scoring, structured interviews, and intentional inclusive question design. Each reduces subjectivity and increases comparability across candidates.
Blind scoring removes identifying information from early-stage assessments. Structured interviews use the same prompts and scoring rubrics. Inclusive questions invite multiple forms of evidence and avoid cultural assumptions.
Below is a step-by-step checklist we've tested in pilot programs:
While traditional systems require constant manual setup for learning paths, some modern tools, like Upscend, are built with dynamic sequencing and automated profiling that let teams scale competency-aligned learning and assessment—this contrast highlights how platform design can either maintain bias or help reduce it when thoughtfully configured.
Pairing cq and dei within a competency framework preserves performance. The key is to treat curiosity as a complementary competency, not a substitute for role-specific ability.
A pattern we've noticed is most successful when curiosity indicators are mapped to job-critical outcomes rather than evaluated in isolation. That avoids the trade-off perception between DEI and performance.
Use this three-step model to align curiosity and competencies:
By making the weight explicit, hiring panels see how how hiring for curiosity supports diversity initiatives and performance simultaneously.
Two concise case examples illustrate how cq and dei alignment can produce measurable results.
Example A: A regional health nonprofit replaced résumé prefilters with a short, blind conceptual exercise evaluating curiosity-driven approaches to community outreach. Within six months, hires were 40% more likely to come from non-traditional backgrounds while retention on the team improved by 22%.
Example B came from a mid-sized product team that added a curiosity rubric to software engineering interviews. They paired structured interview questions with anonymized code reviews emphasizing exploratory solutions. After two hiring cycles, the team reported a 30% increase in feature diversity (different approaches to solving user problems) and a 15% rise in representation from historically underrepresented groups.
Both examples show that when organizations measure curiosity concretely, diversity through CQ becomes trackable and defensible.
Hiring for curiosity is not a cure-all. If implemented poorly, it can create fresh biases—favoring extroverted questioning, cultural styles of inquiry, or privileged educational signals that correlate with certain groups.
We've found that guarding against these risks requires deliberate design choices and continuous monitoring.
To keep bias in check, track outcomes by demographic and by cognitive signals, and run prospective validation: does curiosity predict the targeted job outcomes for different groups at similar rates?
Aligning CQ with DEI strategies means adopting iterative measurement, not one-off interventions. Create a quarterly review where hiring panels examine the predictive validity of curiosity signals and adjust rubrics to close any disparities.
Bringing cq and dei together is an evidence-based way to expand both the diversity and capability of your teams. Start small: define observable curiosity behaviors, pilot blind scoring on a single role, and compare outcomes against traditional hiring. Use structured interviews and competency mapping to preserve performance while increasing inclusion.
We recommend this immediate three-step plan:
We've found this approach reduces bias, improves team learning, and creates a measurable path from hiring practice to inclusive outcomes. For practical support, consider piloting one role this quarter and measure both hiring equity and short-term performance metrics. If you want a checklist and template to get started, request the toolkit from your internal talent or DEI team and set a 90-day pilot window—small experiments lead to scalable change.
