Structuring Equality: How Hiring Managers’ Reliance on Structured Job Interviews Shape Hiring Outcomes

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Abstract

Structuring Equality: How Hiring Managers’ Reliance on Structured Job Interviews Shape Hiring Outcomes

How do employers tight coupling of fair-minded hiring policies and fair screening practices shape selection outcomes? Based on a 12-month ethnographic study of hiring entry-level roles at two national education nonprofits, this study identifies two consequences of using a fair candidate assessment tool – structured job interviews. Drawing on cultural matching and coupling theory, I show that constraining screener action may contribute to hiring inequality in unanticipated ways. Organizations gain legitimacy by implementing structured job interviews. Staff perceive the screening process as fair since it limits discretion and treats candidates uniformly. Yet, by constraining action, screeners rely on candidates’ tacit knowledge of the hiring process which is unevenly distributed throughout the applicant pool. By failing to account for differences in cultural capital prior to the screening stage, fair hiring practices inadvertently reinforce hiring equalities. Understanding the limits of constraining screener action helps explain why objective and fair practices may fail to attenuate unequal outcomes.

Author

• Jeraul Mackey, Harvard University