Hiring Decisions Research Articles

Accounting graduates with both online and traditional coursework: impact on hiring decisions

ABSTRACT With the growth of online education, many students enrolled in traditional accounting programs are taking a portion of their coursework online. Accounting students, educators, and administrators in traditional programs want to select a mix of coursework that avoids sending a negative signal to recruiters and harming job prospects. Given that accounting is a specialized profession, the signal may vary with the type of coursework (accounting, non-accounting business, non-business) taken online. First, we use a sample of 546 U.S. Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) to determine the portion of coursework taken online needed to make a difference in evaluations of job candidates. Then, using an additional sample of 286 U.S. CPAs, we test whether the type of coursework taken online makes a difference in the evaluation of a job candidate. Taking accounting courses online tends to adversely affect evaluations while taking non-accounting business courses or non-business courses online does not.

A Team-Compatibility Decision Support System for the National Football League

Abstract Many factors are considered when making a hiring decision in the National Football League (NFL). One difficult decision that executives must make is who they will select in the offseason. Mathematical models can be developed to aid humans in their decision-making processes because these models are able to find hidden relationships within numeric data. This research proposes the Heuristic Evaluation of Artificially Replaced Teammates (HEART) methodology, which is a mathematical model that utilizes machine learning and statistical-based methodologies to aid managers with their hiring decisions. The goal of HEART is to determine expected and theoretical contribution values for a potential candidate, which represents a player’s ability to increase or decrease a team’s forecasted winning percentage. In order to validate the usefulness of the methodology, the results of a 2007 case study were presented to subject matter experts. After analyzing the survey results statistically, five of the eight decision-making categories were found to be “very useful” in terms of the information that the methodology provided.

Acting with Algorithms: Feminist Propositions for Rhetorical Agency

This essay links the ubiquitous presence of algorithms with feminist engagements with agency. Grounding our intervention in the concerns of feminist digital studies with embodied experiences of risk and vulnerability in digital networks, we call for feminist attention to the agential consequences of algorithms. We target especially the complex and compromised forms of agency that participants in digital networks share with both human and nonhuman others. Drawing on feminist and technofeminist approaches, we characterize how contemporary digital networks, shaped powerfully by algorithms, not only fall short of ideals of safe, civil, public engagement, but also how algorithms--and the agency attributed to them within digital networks--constrain professional and activist work. Guided by our concern for pragmatic implications of these agential complications, we address three key audiences: graduate students undertaking their professional development in this contemporary digital context; faculty members on search committees making high-stakes hiring decisions; and advocates seeking to bridge academic and public engagement around issues of injustice and equity. To these audiences we articulate seven feminist propositions to clarify and foreground the way algorithmic agency complicates routine rhetorical readings of digital participation.

The Cost of Human Capital Depreciation During Unemployment

Abstract This paper argues that human capital depreciation during unemployment generates an externality in job creation: firms ignore how their hiring decisions affect the skill composition of the future unemployment pool, and hence the output produced by new hires. As a consequence, job creation is too low from a social point of view. But the extent to which it is too low varies over the cycle. The reason is that the increase in the expected productivity of a new hire from next period’s unemployment pool caused by hiring an additional worker today, depends on the pool’s composition, which varies over the cycle.

Employer-Assigned Workload and Human Capital Deterioration: Evidence From the National Football League

We test whether human capital deterioration is a function of employer decision making with respect to workload allocation. We examine this question in the context of National Football League running backs, where the structure of nonguaranteed employment contracts has the potential to create divergent incentives for franchises and players. We empirically test how employer-assigned workloads impact changes in player productivity and career length. We find that larger employer-assigned workloads result in larger decreases in future productivity. However, players assigned larger workloads tend to have longer careers. These results suggest deleterious physical effects from increased workloads while also implying hiring decisions are partially based on status or exposure effects.

Women’s perceived contributions to diversity: The impact of target race and contextual gender salience

Diversity is a desired attribute for many organizations. Yet, there is limited scientific understanding of what leads people to perceive diversity, and past studies focus on racial diversity to the exclusion of other social identities. We investigated how an individual’s race and gender conjointly impact their perceived contributions to organizational diversity and whether context-driven gender salience affects these judgments. Study 1 established that, in the absence of an organizational context, women of color are considered to contribute more to diversity than men of color, White women, and White men. In Studies 2A–2C, we manipulated an organization’s demographic composition and found that female representation affected White women’s perceived contributions to diversity more than Black women’s perceived contributions to diversity. Similarly, in Study 3, we found that an organization’s history of gender discrimination increased White women’s, but not Black women’s, perceived contributions to diversity. This research has implications for diversity-related hiring decisions.

Social Class and Obesity: An Association between BMI and Occupational Prestige

It has been well established that physical appearance plays a role in the hiring decision, especially for women. However, the association between occupational prestige and image has not been well documented. As the use of regression analysis does not imply causality, this study focuses on the association between obesity and occupational prestige. Utilizing data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), this study seeks to extend the literature by analyzing the relationship between occupational prestige and the observed differences in ranking by body mass index (BMI). Adjusting for sociodemographic factors, this study concludes that an inverse relationship between BMI and occupational ranking is observed among women, while a positive association exists among men. The use of ordinary least squares modeling does not permit the exclusion that these associations are due to obesity alone, as there could be other unobserved characteristics influencing this relationship. However, the associations found can be a critical component in the attainment of occupational prestige and show that gender differences are present.

Penalized for Personality: A Case Study of Asian-Origin Disadvantage at the Point of Hire

Do employers penalize Asian-origin workers for personality-related reasons during real hiring decisions? Current theoretical approaches—the Model Minority Myth perspective and the Heterogeneity approach—provide conflicting predictions as to the nature of an Asian-origin personality penalty, if one exists. Furthermore, evidence of an Asian-origin personality penalty is typically derived from laboratory experiments based on evaluation of fictitious material rather than from real hiring decisions based on face-to-face interviews and hiring deliberations. To fill the empirical gap and resolve theoretical tension, I provide evidence of an Asian-origin personality penalty from a case study of hiring at a Silicon Valley high-technology firm. Drawing from quantitative and qualitative data, I demonstrate how the firm’s decision makers penalize Asian-origin job candidates during hiring decisions for their judged personality traits in a way that does not fully coincide with either theoretical approach, and I propose a theoretical model to describe the personality “content” of the Asian-origin personality penalty as it occurs in real hiring decisions.

What Signals Do Employers Use When Hiring? Evidence from a Survey Experiment in the Apprenticeship Market

Abstract How do employers use different types of signals—that is, information believed to be associated with productivity—when hiring apprentices? We use a survey experiment in Switzerland—a country with a well-developed dual training system—to study employers’ hiring behaviour. The results reveal that whenever possible, employers resort to direct signals, i.e. information such as educational credentials and aptitude test scores, when making hiring decisions. However, in contexts of high uncertainty, notably, when candidates’ profiles convey ambiguous signals, they are more likely to use probabilistic signals, such as socio-economic status (SES) indicators, to complement their assessments. Consequently, in contexts of high uncertainty, candidates with lower SES are more likely to be discriminated against in the apprenticeship market.

Bifurcated lobbying in America: group benefits and lobbyist selection

The kinds of benefits that groups seek from government predict the kinds of lobbyists they hire. Group benefits are linked to lobbyist selection for three reasons: groups attempt to maximize economic efficiency and preserve political agency, but have different levels of a priori influence with elected legislators. These motivations, which are not disentangled here, imply that private interests seeking selective benefits are more likely to hire multi-client lobbyists than public interests seeking collective benefits. I find strong support for this expectation by exploring the lobbyist hiring decisions of more than 80,000 groups. I then show that public interest groups prefer single-client agents when one controls for lobbyist pay levels, numbers of former legislators hired, and 501(c)(3) status. This last test suggests that private and public interests engage in genuinely different forms of advocacy, independent of material resources or restrictions on nonprofit lobbying.

What Drives Firms' Hiring Decisions? An Asset Pricing Perspective

In a neoclassical dynamic model of the firm with labor market frictions, optimal hiring is a forward-looking decision that depends on both discount rates and expected cash flows. Empirically, we show that: a) the aggregate hiring rate of publicly traded firms in the U.S. economy negatively predicts stock market excess returns and long-term cash flows both in-sample and out-of-sample, and positively predicts short-term cash flows; and b) through a variance decomposition, the time series variation in the aggregate hiring rate is mainly driven by changes in discount rates and short-term expected cash flows, each contributing roughly to 50% of the variation, with no contribution from variation in long-term expected cash flows. Through a structural estimation of the model, we show that labor adjustment costs and, to a lesser extent, time-variation in the price of aggregate productivity risk, are essential for the model to replicate the empirical patterns.

MYRIADS OF COMPETENCES THAT INTERWEAVE OUR LIVES

The subject of the paper is to highlight the importance and role, competences play in our lives. Aim of research: We are not aware of the fact, either, how many competences we have, and we actually use day by day for our social contacts. Result of research: Personal competencies (can) enhance employability, the chances of being successful and competitive in the labour market together with some personality traits that make a powerful impact on hiring decisions. Communication skills and linguistic competence also add a lot to selecting the ideal candidate not to mention intercultural and multicultural communication together with cultural intelligence, all of which have become essential in our globalised world. Socio-cultural competences are also regarded as key issues nowadays. Conclusion: One of the objectives of the paper was to give an overview of the most frequent key competencies that are prevalent not only in the labour market, but also in everyday situations. The present analysis mainly contains key findings from professional literature.

Race, Gender and Beauty: The Effect of Information Provision on Online Hiring Biases

We conduct a study of hiring bias on a simulation platform where we ask Amazon MTurk participants to make hiring decisions for a mathematically intensive task. Our findings suggest hiring biases against Black workers and less attractive workers and preferences towards Asian workers female workers and more attractive workers. We also show that certain UI designs including provision of candidates information at the individual level and reducing the number of choices can significantly reduce discrimination. However provision of candidates information at the subgroup level can increase discrimination. The results have practical implications for designing better online freelance marketplaces.

Tattoos and unfavorable treatment among employees in the hospitality industry

PurposeAs employers are purportedly becoming more receptive to tattoos, the question arises whether tattooed employees are nonetheless subject to unfavorable treatment. In this light, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of different tattoo characteristics on four outcomes: annual earnings, fair interpersonal treatment from supervisors, perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. The specific tattoo characteristics were tattoo number, visibility and content.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data from a sample of 162 tattooed hospitality employees were obtained from a Qualtrics research panel and analyzed using regression.FindingsThe results demonstrated that employees with a greater degree of dark tattoo content (content of a more threatening and intimidating nature) received less favorable treatment, as demonstrated by significant relationships with fair interpersonal treatment, perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. Tattoo number was related to increased perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. At the same time, tattoo number was related to increased annual earnings, signaling a benefit.Research limitations/implicationsMeasures of tattoo characteristics and workplace outcomes were collected in a single survey. An analysis of data collected at different points would potentially provide a more definitive test of cause and effect.Practical implicationsOn one front, organizations should establish grooming policies that specify what is acceptable with respect to tattoos. To help minimize personality-related tattoo stereotypes from influencing hiring decisions, organizations could use personality assessments to make the hiring process more objective. Moreover, diversity training could address tattoo-related stereotypes, bias and prejudice.Originality/valueEven though prior studies have demonstrated that tattooed people are viewed as less suitable for employment, research focused on the relationship between tattoos and actual discrimination has been limited. The results from this study highlight that employees with tattoos may still be subject to maltreatment, despite the mainstreaming of tattoos.

Mechanisms for hiring discrimination of immigrant applicants in the United States

PurposeFew studies examine how hiring discrimination can be an antecedent to the labor exploitation of immigrant workers. The main purpose of this paper is to advance the theoretical understanding of how the intersectionality of race and immigrant status affects differential hiring treatment, and how it affects job offers, job acceptance and hiring decision outcomes for immigrant job seekers.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws from theories on status and intersectionality, and literature on immigration labor and racial hierarchy, addressing the unequal power relations that underlie race and immigration status affecting the hiring process, to advance critical understandings of why immigrant job seekers accept positions where they may be exploited.FindingsThis paper provides a conceptual model to critically synthesize the complexity between race and immigrant status, and their effect on the experience of immigrant job seekers differently. Exploitation opportunism is introduced to better understand the mechanisms of hiring discrimination among immigrant job seekers to include the role of race, immigrant status, economic motivations and unequal power relations on the hiring process.Practical implicationsThe framework for exploitation opportunism will help employers improve the quality and fairness of their hiring methods, and empower immigrant job seekers to not allow themselves to accept subpar job offers which can lead to exploitation.Originality/valueThe paper provides an original analysis of immigrant job seekers' experience of the hiring process that reveals the intragroup differences among immigrants based on race and status, and the decision-making mechanisms that hiring managers and immigrant job seekers use to evaluate job offers and job acceptance.

Politics in the Family: Nepotism and the Hiring Decisions of Italian Firms

This paper studies the effect of family connections to politicians on individuals’ labor market outcomes. Using data for Italy spanning more than three decades on a sample of almost one million individuals plus data on the universe of individuals holding political office, we show that politicians extract significant rents, in terms of private sector jobs, for their family members. We present evidence consistent with the hypothesis that this phenomenon is a form of corruption, i.e., a quid pro quo exchange between firms and politicians, although arguably an inferior substitute for easier-to-detect modes of rent appropriation on the part of politicians. (JEL D72, D73, J23, K42, M51, Z13)

A Deep Choice Model for Hiring Outcome Prediction in Online Labor Markets

A key challenge faced by online labor market researchers and practitioners is to understand how employers make hiring decisions from many job bidders with distinct attributes. This study investigates employer hiring behavior in one of the largest online labor markets by building a datadriven hiring decision prediction model. With the limitation of traditional discrete choice model (conditional logit model), we develop a novel deep choice model to simulate the hiring behavior from 722,339 job posts. The deep choice model extends the classical conditional logit model by learning a non-linear utility function identically for each bidder within of the job posts via a pointwise convolutional neural network. This non-linear mapping can be straightforwardly optimized using stochastic gradient approach. We test the model on 12 categories of job posts in the dataset. Results show that our deep choice model outperforms the linear-utility conditional logit model in predicting hiring preferences. By analyzing the model using dimensionality reduction and sensitivity analysis, we highlight the nonlinear combination of bidders’ features in impacting employers’ hiring decisions.

What does someone's gender identity signal to employers?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanisms underlying hiring discrimination against transgender men.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conduct a scenario experiment with final-year business students in which fictitious hiring decisions are made about transgender or cisgender male job candidates. More importantly, these candidates are scored on statements related to theoretical reasons for hiring discrimination given in the literature. The resulting data are analysed using a bivariate analysis. Additionally, a multiple mediation model is run.FindingsSuggestive evidence is found for co-worker and customer taste-based discrimination, but not for employer taste-based discrimination. In addition, results show that transgender men are perceived as being in worse health, being more autonomous and assertive, and have a lower probability to go on parental leave, compared with cisgender men, revealing evidence for (positive and negative) statistical discrimination.Social implicationsTargeted policy measures are needed given the substantial labour market discrimination against transgender individuals measured in former studies. However, to combat this discrimination effectively, one needs to understand its underlying mechanisms. This study provides the first comprehensive exploration of these mechanisms.Originality/valueThis study innovates in being one of the first to explore the relative empirical importance of dominant (theoretical) explanations for hiring discrimination against transgender men. Thereby, the authors take the logical next step in the literature on labour market discrimination against transgender individuals.

Applicant’s Self Confidence Influence in Employment Interview Process According to Recruiters Perceptions. An Exploratory Study in Greece

Self confidence, self esteem and self efficacy are widely common terms in job search effectiveness according to literature. There is a consensus in a large extent that candidates’ self confidence during interview process has significant influence and affects recruiters’ decisions and respectively hiring results. This study aims to search the significance of employee candidates’ self confidence and its relative impact in recruiters, employers, hiring decisions during employment interview. For this purpose, an empirical research has been conducted in order to explore the importance and relative impact of candidates’ self-confidence in a sample of two hundred and sixty recruiters’, personnel managers’ and employers in Greece about the impact of candidates’ self confidence, might have in their hiring decisions, during interview selection process. The significance of candidates self confidence was measured according to three specific dimensions of the recruiters decisions, which were in particular, the possibility of hiring them, the possibility of consider them as suitable for the position they applied for, and thirdly for the possibility of giving them a chance for a second interview. The three measures were analysed each one individually, and then unified in one, with the term hireability- sellectability. The new index has been tested for cronbach’s alpha measure of reliability, taking high acceptant value. Results show that employee candidates’ self confidence has significant influence and affect recruiters’ decisions and selection outcomes regarding this index. There is also significant impact of candidate’s self confidence, in all three of interviewers’ decisions options as in particular, to hire the candidates, to consider them suitable for the position and to invite them in a second interview.

Unraveling over time

Unraveling, the excessively early matching of future workers to employers, leads to hiring decisions based on severely incomplete information. We provide a model of unraveling in a one-to-one matching market without transfers. Its distinguishing feature is the gradual arrival of information about students that occurs over an extended period of time during which matches can be made. In equilibrium, the market spreads thinly over that period and employers' attractiveness to students is uncorrelated with their worker's productivity. Our model connects previous, seemingly unrelated models of unraveling and it highlights the implications of the two-period assumption on which they rely. Our setting permits the analysis of information timing policies. These are effective only if they provide a sudden and sufficiently large surge in information. Our main application is in the market for clerks to U.S. Federal Appellate Courts, a significant input into the efficiency of the justice system.