Unintended Effects of Anonymous Résumés

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 8517 September 2014 ABSTRACT Unintended Effects of Anonymous Resumes *We evaluate an experimental program in which the French public employment service anonymized resumes for firms that were hiring. Firms were free to participate or not; participating firms were then randomly assigned to receive either anonymous resumes or name-bearing ones. We find that participating firms become less likely to interview and hire minority candidates when receiving anonymous resumes. We show how these unexpected results can be explained by the self-selection of firms into the program and by the fact that anonymization prevents the attenuation of negative signals when the candidate belongs to a minority.JEL Classification: J71, J78

An unintentional pro‐Black bias in judgement among educators

“…However, similar to the results reported here, a recent field study also found an instance where minority groups received better treatment in contexts where their identity was salient. French companies randomly assigned to receive resumes that did not have applicants' names were less likely to interview minority candidates (who were primarily African) compared to companies who received resumes with names (Behaghel, Crépon, & Barbanchon, ). That is, minority applicants had better outcomes when employers had access to their ethnic information.…”

The Dozen Things Experimental Economists Should Do (More of)

“…When the independence condition does not hold (as in Behaghel, Crépon, and Barbanchon ), researchers must explicitly consider selection into the experiment, in order to derive general conclusions. Alternatively, researchers could conduct NFEs that bypass the selection problem by design and thus allow to recover [ y 1 i − y 0 i ] without further assumptions (Al‐Ubaydli and List ).…”

When your resume is (not) turning you down: Modelling ethnic bias in resume screening

“…Anonymous application procedures such as blind auditions (Goldin & Rouse, ), blind interviewing (Buijsrogge, Derous, & Duyck, ), anonymous resume screening (Åslund & Skans, ), or “whitened” resumes (Kang et al, ) aim to combat illegal discrimination by blotting or concealing personal identifiers. Although blind auditions and interviewing have been found to be effective, studies on anonymous resume screening have shown positive (Åslund & Skans, ; Kang et al, ), null, or even negative effects (Behaghel, Crépon, & Le Barbanchon, ; Hiscox et al, ; Krause, Rinne, & Zimmermann, ). The French government, therefore, decided to abandon the idea of making anonymous resume screening mandatory in the recruitment procedures of their public employment services (Behaghel et al, ).…”

“…Although blind auditions and interviewing have been found to be effective, studies on anonymous resume screening have shown positive (Åslund & Skans, ; Kang et al, ), null, or even negative effects (Behaghel, Crépon, & Le Barbanchon, ; Hiscox et al, ; Krause, Rinne, & Zimmermann, ). The French government, therefore, decided to abandon the idea of making anonymous resume screening mandatory in the recruitment procedures of their public employment services (Behaghel et al, ).…”