The Mark of a Woman' Record: Gender and Academic Performance in Hiring

• In Event: 54.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

This paper is the first to investigate how gender and academic performance affect employment outcomes among recent college graduates. I conducted two interrelated studies to understand how men’s and women’s academic performance affects their chances of advancing to the interview stage with employers, along with why employers make the decisions they do. For the first study, a resume audit study, I submitted over 2,100 fictional job applications to employers across five metropolitan areas in the United States. These applications experimentally manipulated applicants’ gender, achievement, and college major (i.e., English, math, business), which allows me to analyze how these factors are related to callbacks for entry-level jobs. For the second study, a survey experiment, I recreated the audit study with a sample of over 250 respondents who work as hiring decision-makers in their companies. I asked them to not only evaluate the applicants’ resumes, but also to provide closed- and open-ended feedback about the applicants’ qualifications and personal characteristics.

Author

• Natasha Quadlin, Indiana University