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‘I always hire great people … they’re just like me’

12 November 2008

Source: Mike Toten for WorkplaceInfo

Is there a tendency for managers to subconsciously favour the recruitment of people similar to themselves in age range and gender? Do particular combinations of age and gender tend to be favoured overall in the recruitment/selection process? Some recent research suggests that stereotyping does occur and certain demographic groups are viewed more favourably than others.

The findings are summarised in an article by management consultant Barry Partridge, published in the Australian Institute of Management magazine Management Today.

Who gets preferential treatment?

After receiving feedback that people aged over 45 found it harder to obtain jobs and were under-represented in training courses, Partridge interviewed over 100 managers to ask why they hired certain people instead of others, and used clinical measurement tools to assess the images they formed about certain groups (ie stereotyping) and the way those images influenced their hiring decisions. Social proximity (ie similarity of the employee to the hiring manager) was also assessed.

The main findings were as follows:

Younger females were regarded as the most socially proximate group to managers and were most likely to receive favourable treatment. They preferred to work with other people of similar age.

Younger male managers were less likely to employ other young males, and older males were less likely to employ men of similar age to them.

Middle-aged females preferred to employ other middle-aged females. While older female managers also preferred to employ females of similar age, older female applicants otherwise received more negative treatment than any other group of applicants.

Different stereotypes were applied to males versus females in each age group — young, middle-aged and older.

Stereotypes of older females were along the lines of ‘loyal, but lack potential’, with potential being considered more important than loyalty. They were also regarded as lacking energy and being unwilling to accept criticism.

Younger males, on the other hand, were often stereotyped as not being competent at the job but having potential, but the perceived attribute of ‘potential’ resulted in more favourable treatment for them. They were also regarded as fun to work with and having a sense of humour — both positive qualities.

Younger females were stereotyped as being quick learners and helpful to others — again, mostly positive qualities.
Older males, on the other hand, were stereotyped as being change-resistant and too ‘political’.

What causes stereotyping?

Partridge claimed that stereotyping, and the discrimination that can result from it, is more likely to occur when managers are stressed due to excessive workloads and other pressures, and when they have insufficient information about job applicants to make a properly informed decision.

In most cases, the managers are unaware that they are stereotyping people and being discriminatory, but they need to learn to question the rationale behind the selection decisions they make, and try to identify whether stereotyping is influencing their judgement.

The consequences of getting it wrong

A widely-publicised equal opportunity case a few years ago showed how stereotyping, even if unintentional and unconscious, can result in unlawful discrimination. Several job applicants aged over 35 claimed that an airline discriminated on the ground of age in its recruitment and selection processes.

One of the airline’s selection criteria was that employees were expected to have a ‘fun’ approach to work. The airline’s recruitment staff were all young people who assumed that people around their own age were more likely than older people to have the ‘fun’ approach, and the result was that no-one aged above their late-30s was hired by the airline over a period of several years.

In this case the recruitment/selection process itself was not deficient — it was based on sound, well-established principles — but the manner in which it operated in practice was discriminatory. The recruitment staff lacked sufficient training and experience to identify and avoid their stereotyping behaviour and the airline had not evaluated its processes thoroughly enough to identify the problems and fix them.

A more detailed analysis of this case appears on WorkplaceInfo.

Lessons for HR

Clearly there are implications for the training of employees involved in the recruitment and selection processes, not only in relation to equal opportunity/discrimination and self-awareness generally, but also in terms of ensuring that the employees gain access to sufficient job-relevant information about each applicant in order to base their decisions on relevant information and thus avoid resorting to assumptions and stereotypes.

It is also important to continually monitor and analyse the hiring decisions that are being made. Evaluate the age and gender profiles of both successful and unsuccessful applicants, looking for any patterns that may indicate stereotyping decisions. This analysis should cover the people who apply for each job, those who survive the screening stages (eg those who are selected for interviews) and those who actually receive job offers. Similar analysis should apply to other attributes where potential discrimination could arise, eg race.

This analysis may help to identify problem areas that can be addressed by further training and awareness strategies.

Further information

A more detailed review of the research referred to above may be found in:
‘Avoid the Stereotype”, by Barry Partridge, published in Management Today, November/December 2008, Australian Institute of Management, pp 22–24.

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