Hiring experiments are almost completely useless. They often conclude racism/sexism is behind most hiring decision making.

These experiments often neglect basic facts about hiring processes of individual entities that can’t be measured by outcomes alone.

Here’s how. ↓1/7

Imagine a job receives 50 identical applications. The names are hidden and the hiring manager only has access to their qualifications.

If only 23 are picked blindly for an interview, it’s inevitable a disparity of identity will result due to the odd number picked alone. ↓2/7

Let’s not stop there. Even in the case 24 applicants are picked up, you would still have a natural disparity of gender, sex, or race *most* of the time.

That disparity will have little to nothing to do with racism/sexism. How is that so? Order of review. ↓3/7

Every hiring manager has a different process of reviewing applicants.

Some would view new applicants first & older ones last. Others view older ones first & newer ones last.

Meaning hiring experiments can’t possibly show the individual processes of every hiring manager. ↓4/7

Let’s skip to the interviewing process.

It’s not rare that an applicant reveals further knowledge and/or experience about the job they’re applying for, despite having the same qualifications on paper as other applicants.

I’ve witnessed this many times. ↓5/7

I’m not saying sex or race plays no part in hiring decision making or there aren’t biases that lead to discrimination.

I think there are many good reasons why there are racially homogenous restaurants or why men occupy most positions at more physically demanding jobs. ↓6/7

What I am saying is outcomes *alone* will rarely tell most of or the full story about whether or not irrational forms of discrimination like racism & sexism explain hiring decision making, in any given field, that prevents group x from getting into the fields on trial. ↓7/7