Kroll Esther, Veit Susanne, Ziegler Matthias
WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Berlin, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Psychological Diagnostics, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2021 Oct 25;12:634376. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.634376. eCollection 2021.
People from marginalized groups are often discriminated against in traditional recruitment processes. Yet as companies faced with skill shortages change their recruitment strategies, the question arises as to whether modern recruitment trends such as the use of professional social network sites, active sourcing, and recruitment assignment to external agencies are affected by implicit or explicit discrimination. In our mixed-method study, we first conducted expert interviews with different types of recruiters to explore the potential for discrimination in the modern recruitment process. We then analyzed panel data from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Germany to see whether there is quantitative evidence of discrimination in modern recruitment. A content analysis of the interviews shows that active sourcing and assignment of recruitment to private agencies are potentially affected by explicit discrimination. We identified three sources of discrimination in personnel selection: recruiters' own attitudes, explicit instructions from managers, and the recruiters' assumptions regarding companies' preferred candidates. The results of mixed multilevel analyses with the company as a second level resonate with the qualitative findings: companies actively approach female employees, older employees, and employees who are born in Southern/Eastern Europe less often and offer women jobs less often. The effects for gender were still significant when we included far-right voting as a moderator variable on the employee level, but the interactions were not significant. Effects for gender and older people in active sourcing were also significant and robust when controlling for income, number of children, level of school completion, and educational background. Our findings suggest that current legislation may be insufficient to protect candidates who belong to marginalized groups from discrimination in modern recruitment.
在传统招聘流程中，边缘化群体的人常常受到歧视。然而，随着面临技能短缺的公司改变其招聘策略，诸如使用专业社交网站、主动搜寻以及将招聘工作委托给外部机构等现代招聘趋势是否受到隐性或显性歧视的问题也随之出现。在我们的混合方法研究中，我们首先对不同类型的招聘人员进行了专家访谈，以探究现代招聘过程中存在歧视的可能性。然后，我们分析了德国就业研究所（IAB）的面板数据，以查看现代招聘中是否存在歧视的量化证据。访谈的内容分析表明，主动搜寻以及将招聘工作委托给私人机构可能受到显性歧视的影响。我们在人员选拔中确定了三种歧视来源：招聘人员自身的态度、经理的明确指示以及招聘人员对公司首选候选人的假设。以公司作为第二层次的混合多层次分析结果与定性研究结果一致：公司主动接触女性员工、年长员工以及出生在南欧/东欧的员工的频率较低，并且向女性提供工作的频率也较低。当我们将极右翼投票作为员工层面的调节变量纳入时，性别效应仍然显著，但交互作用不显著。在控制收入、子女数量、教育程度和教育背景后，主动搜寻中性别和年龄因素的影响也显著且稳健。我们的研究结果表明，现行立法可能不足以保护属于边缘化群体的候选人在现代招聘中免受歧视。
