What researchers uncovered by sending 80,000 fake resumes to companies

PublicityRecently, a group of economists conducted an experiment in about 100 of the largest companies in the country, applying for job vacancies using fictitious resumes with equivalent qualifications but different personal characteristics.

They altered the names of the candidates to suggest they were white or black, men or women — for instance, Latisha or Amy, Lamar or Adam.They released the names of the companies on Monday.

On average, they found that employers contacted the fictitious white candidates 9.5% more frequently than the fictitious black candidates.However, this practice varied greatly by company and sector.

Around 20% of the companies, many of them retailers or automotive dealerships, accounted for almost half of the discrepancy in callback rates between white and black candidates.Two companies showed significantly more bias in favor of white candidates over black candidates than the others.

AutoNation, a used car retailer, contacted supposed white candidates 43% more frequently, and Genuine Parts Co., which sells automotive parts, including under the NAPA brand, called supposed white candidates 33% more frequently.

“We are constantly reviewing our practices to promote inclusion, remove barriers, and will continue to do so,” said Heather Ross, a spokeswoman for Genuine Parts, in a statement.

AutoNation did not respond to a request for comment.Known as an audit study, the experiment was the largest of its kind ever conducted in the United States: researchers sent 80,000 resumes for 10,000 job openings between 2019 and 2021. The results highlight how deeply rooted employment discrimination is in parts of the U.S.

labor market — and how disadvantaged black workers are in certain sectors.”I’m not surprised at all,” commented Daiquiri Steele, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama Law School, who has previously worked at the Department of Labor dealing with employment discrimination cases.

“If you’re facing difficulties getting in, the main issue is the ripple effect it triggers.” This impacts wages and the economy of your community in the long run.Some companies did not show disparities in the treatment between assumed white or black applicants.

Their human resources practices, including a specific policy (more details to be provided later), provide guidance on how companies can avoid biased decisions during the hiring process.

A lower incidence of racial bias was observed in specific sectors, such as food stores, including Kroger; food product companies, such as Mondelez; freight and transportation companies, such as FedEx and Ryder; and wholesale companies, including Sysco and McLane Co.

“We want to highlight not only that racism and sexism are real, that some have discriminatory practices, but also that it is possible to improve and there are lessons to be learned from those who are doing a good job,” said Patrick Kline, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted the study alongside Evan K.

Rose from the University of Chicago, and Christopher R. Walters, from Berkeley.The researchers released details of their experiment for the first time in 2021, without mentioning the names of the companies involved.

The new article, to be published in the American Economic Review, reveals the names of the companies and describes the methodology developed to group them based on their performance, taking into account statistical noise.The study involved 97 companies.

The jobs the researchers applied for were entry-level, not requiring a university degree or extensive professional experience. In addition to race and gender, the researchers tested other characteristics protected by law, such as age and sexual orientation.

To try and identify patterns in company practices, instead of isolated cases, the researchers sent up to a thousand applications to each company, applying for up to 125 job openings per company in locations throughout the country. Subsequently, they checked if the employer contacted the candidate within a 30-day period.

Prejudice against Black namesCompanies that require high customer interaction, such as sales and retail, especially in the automotive sector, were more likely to prefer supposedly white candidates.

According to the researchers, this occurred even when applying for positions at companies that did not require customer interaction, indicating that discriminatory practices were ingrained in corporate culture or human resources policies.

However, there were exceptions – some of the companies that showed less prejudice were retailers like Lowe’s and Target.

Lincoln Quillian, a sociologist at Northwestern who analyzes audit studies, stated that the study may underestimate the rate of discrimination against black candidates in the job market as a whole because it tested large companies, which tend to discriminate less.

The study did not consider names pretending to represent Latino or Asian-American candidates, but other research indicates that these groups are also less contacted than white candidates, although facing less discrimination than black candidates.

The experiment was concluded in 2021, and it is possible that some of the companies involved have changed their practices since then. Nonetheless, an analysis of all available audit studies concluded that discrimination against black candidates has not changed in the last three decades.

After the Black Lives Matter movement protests in 2020, it was found that this discrimination decreased among some employers, but the researchers responsible for this study stated that this effect was likely short-lived.Gender, age, and LGBTQ+ statusOn average, companies did not distinguish between male and female candidates.

This is in line with other research indicating that gender discrimination against women is rare in entry-level jobs and starts later in their careers.However, when companies favored men (especially in the manufacturing industry) or women (mainly in clothing stores), biases were much more pronounced than in the case of race.

Builders FirstSource contacted the male fictitious candidates more than double the times than the female fictitious candidates.

Ascena, the owner of brands like Ann Taylor, contacted 66% more women than men.None of the companies responded to requests for comments. The consequences of being female varied by race.

The discrepancies were minimal, but being a woman represented a slight advantage for white candidates and a slight disadvantage for black candidates.The researchers also tested various other characteristics protected by law, with a smaller number of resumes.

They found that being over 40 years old represented a slight disadvantage.Overall, they did not identify any disadvantages with the use of non-binary pronouns.

Being gay, as indicated by membership in an LGBTQ+ club on the resume, resulted in a small detriment for white candidates but benefited black candidates — although the effect was small, the racial bias disappeared when this appeared on their resumes.According to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination is illegal, even if unintentional.

However, in practice, job candidates have difficulty knowing why they did not receive a response from a company.

“These practices are especially difficult to address because candidates often do not know if they are being discriminated against in the hiring process,” said Brandalyn Bickner, a spokeswoman for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in a statement.

(The Commission is already aware of the data and has spoken with the researchers, although it cannot rely on an academic study to initiate an investigation, she said.)What companies can do to reduce discrimination.

The researchers found that several common practices, such as hiring a diversity director, offering diversity training, or having a diverse board, were not associated with reducing discrimination in hiring for entry-level positions.

However, one factor stood out as a strong predictor of less discrimination: a centralized human resources operation.The researchers recorded the voicemail messages the fake candidates received.

When the calls from the company came from phone numbers generally not belonging to individuals, indicating they were from a central office, there tended to be less bias. When they originated from physical hiring managers from local stores or warehouses, there was more.

These messages often seemed rushed and informal, asking, for example, if a candidate could start the next day.”This is where implicit biases arise,” said Kline. A more formalized hiring process helps overcome this.

“Just thinking about things, what steps to take, having to submit something to someone for approval, can be very important to mitigate biases,” he analyzed.At Sysco, a wholesale food distributor for restaurants that did not show racial bias in the study, a centralized recruitment team reviews resumes and decides whom to contact.

“Consistency in how we assess candidates, focusing on job requirements, is key,” reflected Ron Phillips, Sysco’s HR director. “This reduces the chance of personal views arising in the process.”Another important factor is diversity among the hiring decision-makers, said Paula Hubbard, HR director at McLane Co.

The company acquires, stores, and delivers products for major retailers like Walmart and did not show racial bias in the study. About 40% of the company’s recruiters are Black people, and 60% are women.

Diversifying the pool of people applying for vacancies also helps, HR collaborators said. McLane participates in events for women in trucking and publishes billboards in Spanish.The same principle applies to skill-based hiring, rather than diplomas.

Although McLane previously required a college degree for many positions, that practice changed after determining specific skills were more important for warehouse or driving work.

“Now we do this for all our positions: is a diploma really necessary? Why? Does it make sense? Is experience enough?” Hubbard analyzed.Hilton, another company that did not show racial bias in the study, also stopped requiring diplomas for many jobs in 2018.

The new study found that another factor associated with less bias in hiring was greater regulatory scrutiny, such as in the case of federal contractors or companies with more citations from the Department of Labor.

Lastly, the most profitable companies showed less bias, which aligns with a long-standing economic theory by Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker, who argues that discrimination harms business.

Economists suggest this may be the case because the most profitable companies benefit from a more diverse set of employees. Or it may signal that they use more efficient business processes, both in human resources and other areas.