The Matthew Effect is a phenomenon commonly seen in the online world, as tools that ostensibly should lower inequality by giving all people access to fantastic resources, end up benefiting the better off because they have the willingness and ability to better capitalize on these tools.

This has been most evident with the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), that have seen thousands of short courses from the leading universities in the world placed online for free (albeit with a small price for certification).  To date, an ongoing accusation against MOOCs is that they have primarily been used by people already in possession of a degree, so they have done little to broaden access to higher education at a time when not only is education increasingly expensive, but is increasingly important in an age where the speed of learning is a crucial aspect of success in the labor market.

A new study from North Carolina State University explored whether the various tools to support the online job hunter succumbed to similar flaws, or whether they did make the recruitment process a generally more equal and meritocratic affair.

Fairer recruitment

“In theory, the internet gives job seekers access to a wider range of job opportunities than was available previously, and also gives organizations access to a much larger pool of job candidates,” the researchers explain. “We wanted to see how the internet was affecting the hiring process in the real world. What we found is that access to information has not led to access to opportunity for many people.”

The researchers grilled dozens of senior human resources (HR) professionals to try and understand how organizations from public and private sectors are currently using online tools to both advertise openings and ultimately recruit candidates.

The analysis revealed a profound bifurcation in the job market, with the split dividing the low-skill and low-wage jobs from the high-skill and high-wage senior positions.

“Lower-wage jobs are often advertised on large job sites, such as Monster.com,” the researchers explain. “This gives the jobs good visibility, and results in hundreds or thousands of applicants for many of the positions. This makes it hard for any individual job seeker to find employment, and poses challenges for the HR professionals tasked with sorting through a flood of applications.”

Into the black hole

It’s an inherently impersonal experience that some applicants liken to a black hole, as you fire off your application but are extremely unlikely to hear anything back, both due to the weight of the competition but also the workload piled on the HR team by that volume of applicants.

The more senior and influential positions are a completely different situation however.  They typically require very specific and narrowly-defined skills that a much smaller pool of candidates possess.  Indeed, often the pool of potential candidates is so small that recruiters likened it to trying to find purple squirrels.

“These positions are often posted on big job sites, but there is a bias against candidates who actually apply for those jobs,” the authors say. “Instead, HR professionals use sites like LinkedIn to seek out and recruit ‘purple squirrels’ who are currently employed and not actively seeking new positions.”

This reliance on informal means of recruiting for the senior jobs is a significant challenge.  Not only does it mean that those already in senior positions are most likely to be approached for other senior positions, but it also results in a very shallow pool of potential candidates being considered.

A shallow talent pool

There were concerns raised recently by the Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission, who analyzed the educational background of around 5,000 people in various top jobs across society. The analysis revealed a highly unequal landscape, with those influential people five times more likely to have gone to a private school than the average population. Indeed, the authors note that “power rests with a narrow section of the population – the 7% who attend private schools and the 1% who graduate from Oxford and Cambridge”.

A recent study from McKinsey highlights how this is underpinning a worrying trend across the developed world that sees inequality widen.  The analysis found that one’s opportunities increasingly depend on the endowments provided by one’s personal circumstances, and especially your family background and place of residence.

This matters, as research has shown the benefits of having a diverse workforce, not only in matters of gender, race and nationality, but also social class.  The paper highlights how beneficial it can be to have a more class diverse workforce, whether in terms of enhanced collaboration, a diversity of perspectives and a more balanced leadership team. Despite these advantages however, the authors believe that most organizations today use hiring practices that actively disadvantage those from working class backgrounds.

The author goes on to make a number of recommendations for how recruitment processes can be improved so that working class applications are encouraged rather than discriminated against. These include:

• Expanding and improving talent acquisition efforts – especially by broadening your search out from the most selective colleges and universities, as the authors argue that academic performance is no real predictor of performance on the job.
• Reduce opportunities for selection bias – with a particular emphasis on the information that is truly relevant for hiring, and the elimination of information that is not relevant and may introduce bias into your decision making.

They also recommend a number of practices that you should avoid if you’re trying to build a diverse workforce, including:

• Excessive emphasis on organizational fit – recruiting according to cultural fit is increasingly common, but if most of your current workforce are of a certain background, this can easily result in homogeneity rather than diversity. Instead, focus on the applicant’s ability.
• Anchoring pay on previous salary – organization’s pay practices can easily cause systemic inequality, and indeed such is the risk that many places now outlaw recruiters from asking about previous salaries to try and avoid low anchoring during negotiations.

If we want a diverse workforce, then it’s clear that things need to change, both in the way we recruit and the things we look for in candidates.  Hopefully greater awareness is a good first step towards achieving that.