Assessing the other: a study on recruiting practices of high skilled ethnic minorities

Abstract

Research on recruitment of ethnic minorities is often focused on discrimination and hinders for entering organizations. In contrast to existing literature, this study investigates an inclusive organization that recruits high skilled migrants and ethnic minorities. It focusses on actual recruitment practices using participant observations of employment interviews and assessment of candidates. We identify two key recruitment practices in the construction of acceptability: association and adequacy. These practices assess candidate in view of their similarity with existing employees (association) and in view of their adequacy with the position’s conditions (who will they be working with, what are the possibility of career). We show how association and adequacy are constructed around the ethnic background of the candidates, placing ethnicity in a central position in the construction of acceptability. Our results contribute to recruitment theory, by showing that acceptability is constructed the same way with all candidates (ethnic minority and/or migrants, or not) and that it is the ethnic order in place that leads to different assessment outcome: acceptable, or not. We introduce the concept of inclusive subordination to discuss the implications of our results for recruitment and policy makers.