Perception on Female Candidates for Managerial Positions – How Does the Experience of the Recruiter Influences Perception?

Abstract

In the process of recruitment, gender is one of the major categorization – which cannot be omitted or escaped (Eagly and Carli, 2006). Studies show (see Eagly, Carli, Schein, Heilman) that women tend to be evaluated less favorably in comparison to men when being recruited. Even in experiments where both candidates own exact skills and knowledge (see Moss-Racusin et al., 2012; Flynn and Anderson, 2002), still there are existent discrepancies between evaluation of male and female candidates. Within the following research, author wanted to investigate whether the experience of recruiter has a significant impact on assessment of a candidate with regard to candidate’s gender. In order to answer the research question, author has conducted a controlled experiment on sample of 100 participants, with equal representation of experienced (MBA students) and unexperienced recruiters (MSc students). Results indicate that still gender bias within the organization may influence the outcome of the recruitment process resulting in less favorable evaluation of female candidates, additionally, it suggests that more experienced recruiters, are less likely to be biased in this regard.