Abstract
In this project, we aim to explore the existence of labor market discrimination in a novel context - communication among hiring team members. Widely used correspondence studies focus on discrimination in callbacks or interview invitations, an early stage of the hiring process. However, for instance, Quillian, Lee, and Oliver (2020) document substantial additional discrimination from interview to job offer. Based on discussion in Dobbin and Kalev (2016) and our interviews with professionals from recruitment industry, we hypothesize that human resource assistants, who are often responsible for sharing their notes from interviewing candidates with (hiring) managers, consciously or unconsciously disclose or emphasize different information about candidates depending on candidates’ ethnicity or gender. To test this conjecture, we conduct an online experiment with a representative sample of Czech respondents whom we ask to perform HR assistants’ job. Each assistant sees multiple profiles of workers and can select any information from them. In each profile, we vary exogenously and independently worker’s nationality and gender by manipulating the name. Assistants know that the selected information is intended to be shown to other respondents whom we assign the role of hiring managers. Collecting data from this complementary sample is worthwhile because it will enable us to study the consequences of assistants’ decisions for hiring of females and immigrants at later stages.
Sources
Dobbin, F., & Kalev, A. (2016). Why diversity programs fail. Harvard Business Review, 94(7), 14.
Quillian, L., Lee, J. J., & Oliver, M. (2020). Evidence from field experiments in hiring shows substantial additional racial discrimination after the callback. Social Forces, 99(2), 732-759.