📝 80,000 fake resumes

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Today’s edition is a 5-minute read. Here’s what to expect👇

🗞️ Researchers examine bias in resume reviews
💰️ Cashier jobs go remote
📋 Multiverse acquires talent platform
💻 Layoffs at Apple, Google
💼 Open TA roles at Whataburger, Oracle

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NEWS
One Thing You Should Know This Week
NYT: What Researchers Discovered When They Sent 80,000 Fake Resumes to U.S. Jobs

Source: Patrick Kline, Evan K. Rose and Christopher R. Walters. Graphic courtesy of Claire Cain Miller and Josh Katz at The New York Times.

From 2019 to 2021, a group of economists sent fake resumes to thousands of jobs in an effort to study discrimination in the hiring process. This week, reporters for The New York Times detailed their findings, and reported out on the names of the companies demonstrating more bias in their hiring process than others.

How did the study work?
Four simple steps. Step one: Create 80,000 fake resumes with equivalent qualifications but different personal characteristics (ex. changing applicant names to suggest they where white or Black, male or female, etc.). Step two: Send these resumes to 10,000+ jobs at 97 of the largest companies in the country over the course of two years. Step three: Track the success rate of the fake applicants in the hiring process at these companies. Step four: Develop “an empirical Bayes ranking procedure that assigns ordinal grades to noisy measurements, balancing the information content of the assigned grades against the expected frequency of ranking errors.” Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

The big finding.
The research uncovered a concerning stat: On average, employers showed a 9.5% higher rate of contacting presumed white applicants compared to presumed Black applicants. Of course, this raises both ethical and legal concerns, as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in hiring of any form, regardless of intent.

The worst of the bunch.
Used car retailer AutoNation contacted presumed white applicants 43% more often, and auto parts company Genuine Parts called presumed white candidates 33% more often. “We are always evaluating our practices to ensure inclusivity and break down barriers, and we will continue to do so,” a Genuine Parts spokeswoman told the Times in a statement (AutoNation did not respond to a request for comment, the Times noted in their report).

The best of the bunch.
On the flip side, many companies did not demonstrate any bias in hiring. Most notably, several food service companies, like Kroger and Sysco, fared very well in the experiment. Diving deeper, researchers looked at what measures correlated with decreased discrimination. Many common practices — such as diversity training or having a diverse board — had no impact, according to the Times. But one thing did predict less discrimination: Having a structured and organized core HR operation.

Researchers also found …
… that hiring based on skills, versus degrees, helps reduce bias; that more profitable companies were less biased; that there was a small penalty for being over 40; that indicating membership in an LGBTQ club on the resume resulted in a slight penalty for white applicants, but benefited Black applicants; and that Ascena, which owns women’s retail chain Ann Taylor, contacted women 66% more often than men.

📥️ Read more from The New York Times

NUMBERS

Numbers That’ll Make You Think

  • $1.7 billion — The amount of capital invested in work technology companies in Q1 2024, a 30% increase from the last quarter of 2023 (Venero Capital)

  • 9 in 10 — The proportion of workers who said they have experienced “common annoyances” from colleagues while at the office, with the most common being loud talking (Owl Labs)

  • 30.2% — The percentage decrease in job vacancies for UK university graduates from one year ago, in what is being dubbed the “worst job market in years” for British grads (Fortune)

  • 1/3 — The fraction of hiring managers in a survey who admitted bias against Gen Z’ers or older candidates (Business Insider)

  • 438,000 — The estimated number of tech job listings in March, the highest number since August 2023 (SIA)

  • $3.75 — The minimum hourly wage in the Philippines, at the forefront of headlines this week after a restaurant in New York City began employing cashiers from Southeast Asia to man the cash registers on Zoom in place of in-person workers (NY Post)

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

M&A Deals, Industry Moves, & Other Things To Know

  • Talent giant Workday is partnering with nonprofit Jobs for the Future to support its second impact venture fund (HR Tech)

  • Tech company Microsoft is opening a new AI division in London, home to Google's DeepMind, setting the stage for an all-out AI talent war in the UK (Business Insider)

  • To round out Women’s History Month, RecruitmentMarketing.com announced its inaugural list of “Women to Watch in Talent Acquisition” (RecruitmentMarketing.com)

  • Ed-tech company Multiverse has acquired talent platform Searchlight to apply generative AI to closing skills gaps at organizations (UK Tech News)

  • A new report details how social media influencing and content creation is proving to be a popular career pivot for people who experienced layoffs (Associated Press)

  • Professional network LinkedIn announced a new verification process for recruiters amid a rising number of scams targeting job seekers (Axios)

OPEN ROLES VIA TALENTCONNECT

Jobs You Might Want (For Yourself!)

LAYOFFS

Places For You To Source Fresh Talent

  • Tech giant Apple laid off more than 600 employees in California as part of the decisions to end its car and smartwatch display projects (Bloomberg)

  • Robotics company Agility Robotics on Thursday confirmed that it laid off a “small number” of employees “that were not central to core product development and commercialization” (TechCrunch)

  • Streaming company Netflix is reported to be laying off an estimated 15 people as the company begins a reorganization of its film department (Deadline)

  • Toy company Mattel is reportedly laying off approximately 75 employees from its New York headquarters after moving some of its Fisher-Price operations to California (NBC WGRZ)

  • Background-screening platform Checkr, last valued at $5B, cut 32% of its workforce on Wednesday (TechCrunch)

WEEKLY TRIVIA

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