This project aims to assess how online data impacts the hiring process. In an ideal situation, one might imagine that employers hire the most skilled applicant, but sociological research indicates that this may not be the case. A job applicant's similarity to the interviewer in class background and class-based leisure activities often matters as much or more to employers than a job applicant's skills or work experience. The ability of a recruiter or employer to learn such information from seemingly unrelated data has led researchers to express concerns about privacy, job relevance, and the potential for discrimination. This is the first stage in a larger project that aims to illuminate how online information impacts the ability of job seekers to find employment in post-recession United States. The project creates a framework for identifying systematic patterns of discrimination in regionally specific job markets, and also provide a fuller picture of precisely when in the hiring process are certain forms of discrimination likely to take place (upon submission of resume, at interview stage, and so on). In addition, the collected data will enable job seekers to discover how online information affects their employability, and aid the development of strategies to align online data and professional profiles. The researchers will develop a novel mixed-methods framework to better understand the hiring process and study hiring discrimination by combining ethnographic studies of employers and companies that aggregate applicant profiles; surveys of applicants' background, skillset, and job-seeking history; online profile aggregation; and traditional data mining techniques. This project will contribute to the understanding of how employment works in the United States, and the types of online information that may limit employability. The problem will be addressed across populations that have varying demographic profiles and skill sets, and whose primary industries vary greatly. The proposed analysis will capture regionally specific hiring practices and reveal insights into the kinds of demographic indicators that work for or against job seekers in different regions.
EAGER: Leveling the Digital Playing Field for the Job Seeker