The effects of gender, educational background, and leisure activities on initial screening decision

Abstract

The objectives of this study are to: 1) identify the possible factors which may contribute to the impression formation process at the pre-interview phase, and 2) examine how the identified factors, if any, affect the pre-interview impression that the recruiters form at the pre-interview phase. This study was divided into two parts. In the pilot study, two listings of personality related leisure activities were obtained. Such information was then used to compose part of the instrument for use in the experiment in the main study. This experiment utilized a 2 x 2 x 2 design with gender, educational background, and leisure activities being the dependent variables. A packet of 8 fictitious applications were reviewed by 30 human resource specialists. Having reviewed the applications, the subjects were asked to evaluate each of the applicants. The results were then analyzed using ANOVA models. It was found that gender as a main effect did not affect the applicants' perceived quality ratings. On the other hand, the other two hypothesized main effects, educational background, and hobbies/interests were proven to have influence on the pre-interview impression. The interaction effects uncovered indicated that, though, on average, gender of the applicants do not contribute to the differences in ratings, when educational background and hobbies/interests are also considered, gender of the applicants do give a different impression to the recruiters. Exploratory in nature, this study has yielded results that can serve as the basis for further investigation in the local population.