Sex effects in evaluating applicant qualifications: A reexamination

It has been hypothesized that female applicants for male sex-typed jobs are evaluated using different selection criteria than males for the same jobs (E. A. Cecil, R. J. Paul, and R. A. Olins, Perceived Importance of Selected Variables Used to Evaluate Male and Female Job Applicants, Personnel Psychology, 1973, 26, 397–404). The present study examined this hypothesis in two separate experiments, in an attempt to replicate the findings and conclusions of Cecil et al. Results do not support the hypothesis that applicant sex affects the ratings of importance of applicant qualifications for sex-typed jobs, although raters do appear to stereotype the kinds of jobs for which males and females are likely to apply. Type of job for which applicants apply is a stronger determinant of what qualifications are evaluated as important in an interview situation. Use of selection criteria (e.g., tests) that validly predict later job performance and that are standardized for all job applicants, might prevent sex discrimination more than training raters to be wary of sex stereotyping of required applicant qualifications.The authors express their gratitude to Amanda Patacsil for her assistance in data collection and analysis.     

Book review of Conversations of Friends: Speculations on Affective Development

Two experiments examined the affective consequences associated with self-monitoring in a job application context. Study 1 examined reactions of high and low self-monitors to slides of interviewers whose faces fit or did not fit an occupation. It was hypothesized that high self-monitors would experience the most negative affect when the face did not fit the occupational stereotype because such a mismatch would provide unclear or conflicting cues for expected behavior, whereas low self-monitors would experience the most negative affect when the face matched the stereotype because expectations for stereotypical behavior would constrain their expression of self. Results confirmed the hypotheses. In Study 2, subjects were asked to give the "right answers" on a personality test to get a job which either fit or did not fit their personality. Low self-monitors, more concerned with accurate self-presentation, experienced heightened negative affect if the job did not fit their personality, whereas high self-monitors who are accustomed to controlling their self-presentation experienced less negative affect. In both studies, situational cues or demands that conflicted with the motivational concerns of self-monitoring style differentially produced negative affect for high and low self-monitors. Implications of making hiring decisions on the basis of interviews and other devices subject to impression management were discussed.     

Double Jeopardy Upon Resumé Screening: When Achmed Is Less Employable Than Aïsha

Applicants belong to multiple categories (e.g., male, ethnic minority) and a complex set of factors affects category activation and inhibition when making hiring decisions. Two field experiments with recruiters who regularly engage in resumé screening showed that the role of multiple categories (applicants’ ethnicity and sex) in discrimination depended on job type and prejudice. Specifically, in both low‐ and high‐demand (i.e., complex) jobs, Arab women were rated more favorably than Arab men, particularly when considering levels of client contact. Across both studies, recruiters high in explicit ethnic prejudice were discriminatory only when applicants’ job qualifications fit the job position less, lending support for the attributional‐ambiguity effect. Implicit attitudes did not play a strong role. Our study findings point to the complex nature of multiple categorization effects in the hiring process. Implications are considered as to how to avert hiring discrimination during resumé screening.     

Adding versus averaging: Evaluability theory applied to job choice decisions

While the unique roles of individual job attributes (e.g., salary and benefits) in job and organizational attraction have received extensive research attention, research examining the mechanisms through which an overall evaluation of a job option is made by combining evaluations of individual attributes is scarce. The current study examined the process through which job choice decisions are made under three conditions: when evaluating a single job offer, when comparing two job offers, and when evaluating more than two job offers. In Study 1, it was found that when a single job offer is evaluated, the average of perceived values of attributes in an offer (e.g., the perceived attractiveness of a salary) drives the choice, whereas the difference between jobs is what matters when two jobs are evaluated simultaneously, potentially leading to a preference reversal between conditions when the same two jobs are evaluated. In Study 2, it was found that average values of attributes across options (e.g., average salary in all job offers received) influence job choice when more than two job offers are evaluated simultaneously. These findings indicate that in all three conditions, job choice decisions are influenced by the evaluability of the choice set, which becomes low when a single job offer is evaluated without any context, or when more than two job offers are evaluated simultaneously, and becomes high when two jobs are compared with each other. When evaluability is low, candidates resort to averaging as the decision rule, whereas adding is used when evaluability is high.     

The Relation between Selection Expectations,Perceptions and Organizational Attraction: A test of competing models

Little is known about how applicants' selection expectations and perceptions interplay in predicting applicant attraction outcomes (organizational attractiveness, job pursuit intention, and recommendation intention). In the present study, 340 entry‐level applicants for jobs in a large financial company provided information about their selection expectations before the procedure, and about their perceptions and attraction to the organization after the procedure. Regression analyses indicated that applicant perceptions, and in particular perceptions of warmth/respect, mediated the relationship between selection expectations and organizational attractiveness and job pursuit intention. No support was found for the moderating role of selection expectations in the perception–attraction relationship. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Occupational suitability bias for full-time and part-time employment in sex-typed jobs

The present study examines the effects of employment status (full time, part time), job sex type, and job applicant sex upon judgments of occupational suitability. Sixty-three male and 176 female undergraduate students (ranging in age between 17 and 32 years) read a brief vignette describing either a man or a woman. Subjects then rated the occupational suitability of the person for three male sex-typed jobs (plumber, bus driver, cabinetmaker) and three female sex-typed jobs (secretary, telephone operator, hairdresser). In one condition subjects were explicitly told that these jobs were full time. In a second condition subjects were explicitly told that these jobs were part time. Results indicated a sex-congruency bias for both full time and part time employment. However, there was evidence that sex congruency bias is reduced for part-time employment.The author is grateful to Dr. Julian Barling, Dr. Rudolf Kalin, and Kevin Kelloway for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. The comments provided by the anonymous reviews were also appreciated.     

Les effets de l’attrait,du sexe,des aptitudes de candidats à des postes de niveau hiérarchique et type sexuel différents sur les jugements de recrutabilité, d’utilité et de désirabilité

Gender or beauty stereotypes strongly influence evaluations and hiring decisions. Recent studies (Jawahar & Mattson, 2005) show an evolution of the lack of Fit model (Heilman, 1983) : the beauty of the women is not any more a handicap for certain managerial jobs. In order to test the model, we distinguished the hierarchical status and the sex type of the job and we measured the effects of attractiveness, gender and of the aptitude on the hirability, on the perceived desirability and utility and on the perceived competence. According to the variance analysis, the attractive applicants were ranked as more hirable, more useful, more socially desirable, and more competent. The applicants who were highly qualified were considered more hirable, more useful and more competent but the aptitude did not influence the desirability.     

Living and Learning: Reproducing Beliefs in Selective Experience

People's decisions shape their experience. For example, a recruitment officer decides between job applicants and cannot evaluate the suitability of rejected applicants. The selection decisions thus affect the content of the officer's experience of suitable and unsuitable applicants, and experiential learning is achieved from a selective sample of experiences. It is suggested that people's beliefs are sensitive to the content of the experienced sample, but the mind cannot adjust for the selectivity of the sample even when it results from the individual's own decisions. Two experiments with a recruitment task showed that incorrect prior beliefs survive experiential learning when the beliefs are reproduced and thus appear to be confirmed, in actual experience. When the task was to achieve high performance, incorrect prior beliefs persisted because they were reproduced in a smaller sample of selected job applicants. In contrast, when the task was focused on learning, a greater number of applicants were selected, and a more representative experience therefore revised incorrect beliefs. The actual content of the experienced sample is thus crucial for the persistence, as well as for the revision, of incorrect beliefs. Further, as predicted by the hypothesis of constructivist coding, when feedback was absent for rejected applicants, participants constructed “internal feedback” in line with the expectation that the rejected applicant was unsuitable. Thus, when fewer applicants were hired, participants came to believe that the actual proportion of suitable applicants was low. Finally, the implications for efforts to reduce bias and improve experiential learning are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of Job Applicants' Facial Maturity, Gender, and Academic Achievement on Hiring Recommendations

Two studies investigated the impact of job applicants' facial maturity, gender, and achievement level on hiring recommendations. The results revealed that discrimination based on gender and facial appearance varies with the type of job for which an applicant is being considered. Applicants who were babyfaced or female were favored for jobs requiring qualities of warmth and submission, whereas those who were maturefaced or male were favored for jobs requiring qualities of shrewdness and leadership. These hiring preferences were most pronounced for high achieving applicants. They were also paralleled by stereotypical perceptions of the job- relevant attributes possessed by the applicants, which suggests that the effects of applicants' gender and facial maturity are mediated by the perceived fit between their assumed attributes and the job requirements. Finally, the jobs for which male and maturefaced applicants were favored were those for which high-achieving applicants were also favored, which suggests that female and babyfaced applicants are most apt to be discriminated against when applying for higher status jobs.     

Physical Attractiveness Biases in Ratings of Employment Suitability: Tracking Down the “Beauty is Beastly” Effect

ABSTRACT

The “what is beautiful is good” heuristic suggests that physically attractive persons benefit from their attractiveness in a large range of situations, including perceptions of employment suitability. Conversely, the “beauty is beastly” effect suggests that attractiveness can be detrimental to women in certain employment contexts, although these findings have been less consistent than those for the “what is beautiful is good” effect. The current research seeks to uncover situations in which beauty might be detrimental for female applicants. In two studies, we found that attractiveness can be detrimental for women applying for masculine sex-typed jobs for which physical appearance is perceived as unimportant.     

EFFECTS OF JOB ATTRIBUTES AND RECRUITING PRACTICES ON APPLICANT DECISIONS: A COMPARISON1

Previous research on the factors which affect applicant decisions concerning jobs has focused on the effects of either job attributes or recruiting practices. The present study examined the simultaneous impact of job attributes and recruiting practices on the likelihood of job acceptance by actual job applicants. Path analysis revealed that job attributes but not recruiting practices influenced the likelihood of job acceptance by graduating college students (N= 200). Given that college students might be expected to be the job applicants most swayed by recruiting practices because of their lack of work experience, the results suggest that the emphasis placed on recruiting practices as determinants of applicant decisions may be overstated in the literature.     

Sex typing and gender ideology: two facets of the individual's gender psychology that go together

Three studies tested the hypothesis that gendered personality dispositions are related to gender attitudes and gender discriminatory behaviors. In Study 1, sex-typed individuals were more likely than androgynous, undifferentiated, and cross-sex-typed individuals to accept gender rules designating culturally appropriate behavior for men and women. In Study 2, sex-typed individuals were particularly likely to pay attention spontaneously to the sex of job applicants and then to devalue the interview performances of women. In Study 3, only sex-typed men tended to endorse sexist language. As expected, sex typing and gender ideology go together. This relation between two facets of the individual's gender psychology indicates that some sex role inventories may tap more than expressivity and instrumentality.     

The Employment Interview: The Role of Sex Stereotypes in the Evaluation of Male and Female Job Applicants in the Netherlands1

This field study focused on the influence of sex stereotypes in the evaluation of male (N=38) and female (N=21) job applicants in the Netherlands. The employee selection process for higher-level technical and academic jobs in real life situations was studied, with special attention to the assessment of applicants by members of selection committees. It was demonstrated that, according to the job interviewers, the ideal applicant had more masculine than feminine traits. Males and females were regarded as having the same qualifications for the job, but because male applicants were assessed as having more masculine characteristics and female applicants more feminine characteristics, the male applicants were accepted more often. The job interviewers acted according to a fit model: The applicant most similar in traits to the ideal applicant was hired for each job.     

At the doorstep to employment: Discrimination against immigrants as a function of applicant ethnicity,job type,and raters' prejudice

This study examined the impact of applicant ethnicity, job type, and prejudice on evaluation biases and intentions to interview in an experimental simulation. We suggest that bias and discrimination are more likely when foreign applicants who belong to disliked ethnic groups apply for jobs that require high interpersonal skills, and when raters are prejudiced against immigrants. Subjects were Swiss university students who evaluated Swiss, Spanish, and Kosovo Albanian fictitious applicants. Foreign applicants were second‐generation immigrants, i.e., Swiss‐born descendants of immigrants. Thus, all applicants had similar schooling and language proficiencies but differed with respect to ethnicity. As predicted, discrimination was only observed for members of the disliked ethnic group (Kosovo Albanian) and not for members of the well‐accepted group (Spanish). Moreover, this discrimination was only apparent when applying for a job requiring high interpersonal skills and not when applying for a job requiring high technical skills. Symbolic prejudice towards second‐generation immigrants interacted with applicant ethnicity and job type to affect evaluations of foreign applicants: Persons high in symbolic prejudice devalued foreign applicants belonging to the disliked group but only when applying for a job requiring high interpersonal skills. Overt prejudice was unrelated to evaluations and intentions to interview. These results suggest that discrimination against immigrants is highly specific, targeting only members of certain ethnic groups who apply for certain types of jobs. Moreover, evaluation biases may be more apparent in raters who are prejudiced. Thus, our results support the notion that discrimination for employment results from a complex interaction between characteristics of the applicant, the job, and the rater.     

Sex differences-similarities in job preference factors

In this article, the author investigates sex differences in preferences for various job factors which college students consider important in their job selection decisions. The results showed that while college students have stronge differences in their preferences, these differences are not stereotypically male or female. Overall, both male and female college students are primarily looking for jobs in which they can learn, accomplish something worthwhile, and work with friendly and congenial co-workers. Furthermore, having knowledge regarding the extent to which a company demonstrates broad social concern is not among the most important criteria used by students when making their decisions.     

Smiling in a Job Interview: When Less Is More

Two studies examined the effect of applicants’ smiling on hireability. In a pre-test study, participants were asked to rate the expected behavior for four types of applicants. Newspaper reporter applicants were expected to be more serious than applicants for other jobs. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to be an applicant or interviewer for a newspaper reporting job. Smiling was negatively related to hiring, and smiling mediated the relation between applicants’ motivation to make a good impression and hiring. Hiring was maximized when applicants smiled less in the middle of the interview relative to the start and end. In Study 2, participants watched Study 1 clips and were randomly assigned to believe the applicants were applying to one of four jobs. Participants rated more suitability when applicants smiled less, especially for jobs associated with a serious demeanor. This research shows that job type is an important moderator of the impact of smiling on hiring.     

Overvaluation and undervaluation of women job applicants: How general are the vagaries of sex bias?

Using a realistic managerial task, 288 college students evaluated a man or woman who was applying for a male sex-typed job: stockbroker or football photographer. Applicants were either demonstrably skilled or unknown in ability. Contrary to expectations, skilled women were not overvalued when compared with similarly skilled men. Additionally, women with inadequate information about their ability were not undervalued compared with men. No differences attributable to applicant sex were obtained. Ability information significantly improved ratings of stockbroker applicants, but did not effect football photographer applicants. The generality of prior overvaluation findings obtained by Heilman, Martell, and Simon (1988) is reexamined.     

Gender and Sex as Determinants of Hireability of Applicants for Gender-Typed Jobs

The effects of gender and sex of applicants for gender-typed jobs were investigated in the context of a simulation of a post-interview decision. Student subjects (N=102) rated eight applicants for one of three gender-typed jobs. Results indicated that, in general, masculine applicants (of both sexes) were preferred over androgynous applicants who were preferred over feminine applicants. For the neutral job, androgynous applicants were preferred over masculine applicants who were preferred over feminine applicants. Male and female students did not differ in their ratings of the applicants. The results were interpreted as indicating raters' preference for masculine characteristics in any job applicant.