Cultural Hiring: The Effect of Cultural Tastes on Hiring Discrimination
Name of applicant
Mikkel Haderup Larsen
Title
Postdoctoral Fellow
Institution
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Amount
DKK 1,108,638
Year
2024
Type of grant
Internationalisation Fellowships
What?
Does stating a passion for tennis rather than handball in your job application increase your callback chances? And is it beneficial to signal broad rather than narrow cultural interests? The CultureHire project aims to answer these questions by investigating whether signals of cultural tastes in a job application influence a hiring manager’s decision to invite an applicant for a job interview.
Why?
The CultureHire project is important, because it scrutinizes the implications of status-based signals of cultural taste for how inequality persists on the labor market. We know that hiring managers discriminate against women and ethnic minorities. However, we do not know much about the importance of subtle signals of cultural taste, expressed via leisure interests, for labor market (dis)advantage.
How?
The CultureHire project will conduct an experiment by submitting applications from fictional applicants to real job openings. The applicants will have similar qualifications, while their gender and cultural tastes will vary. In a complementary survey, we will investigate stereotyping as an explanation, by asking a sample of hiring managers to rate the applicants' perceived competence and warmth.