Gender Stereotypes in interviewing and the Effects of a Bias Awareness Training

Micro Seminar
2 men in formal clothing walking towards a room to have a job interview
Speaker
Amelie Schiprowski
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Date
Friday 10 Feb 2023, 15:30 - 16:45
Type
Seminar
Room
M2-10
Building
Van der Goot Building
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2 men in formal clothing walking towards a room to have a job interview

Organizations have become increasingly concerned about the influence of biases on their hiring and promotion decisions. A popular response has been the implementation of bias awareness trainings.

In this paper, we provide evidence on the nature of gender gaps in interview assessments and evaluate the effects of a bias awareness training for interviewers.

Our analysis relies on novel data on the hiring process of a large consulting company. In a first step, we conduct a detailed investigation of the gender gap in interview assessments and job offer rates at the company's interview stage. We find that female candidates receive systematically lower assessments of their cognitive ability, conditional on pre-determined measures of ability, such as GPA.

This assessment gap results in a job offer gap of close to 20%. In a second step, we study the link between an interviewer's assessment behavior and her survey-reported gender stereotypes. We find a strong association between the gender gap in assessments and measures of explicit, but not implicit, gender stereotypes.

Finally, we evaluate a  bias awareness training, which the company implemented to mitigate the potential influence of gender biases on its hiring decisions. We find that interviewers reacted to the intervention by giving significantly more positive assessments. However, this increase in leniency benefited both female and male candidates. As a result, the intervention caused a mere shift of the gender gap to a higher level.

Amelie Schiprowski smiling a the camera

About Amelie

Amelie is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Bonn. She holds a PhD from the University of Potsdam.

Research interests

She is a very active researcher in labor economics with a focus on hiring and recruitment practices and job search.

Registration

If you would like to schedule a bilateral, join lunch or dinner on Friday evening, please send an email to dur@ese.eur.nl.

See also

Consequences of Forced Labor Conscription: Evidence from Dutch Civilians after WWII

Carola Stapper (University of Cologne)
Image - Rotterdam

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