QUELLE EFFICACITÉ POUR LE CV ANONYME ? LES LEÇONS D’UNE ÉTUDE EXPÉRIMENTALE

Abstract

Recent and past research has concluded that many
sources of discrimination impact significantly hiring
decisions, and has called for the implementation of
effective methods to neutralize them. The anonymous
application form is one of those methods, which has
received little attention from researchers, despite a
significant media coverage. This paper presents an
experimental study on a sample of 1246 recruiters. In
a first stage, we analyzed the overall effectiveness of
the anonymous application form as a selection tool for
heterogeneous application forms. In a second step, we
checked the anonymous application form’s efficiency
on an adverse impact factor already examined (applicant’s visible origin) and on a second factor seldom
investigated (applicant’s physical appearance). Our
results confirm the presence of a discrimination
based on physical appearance (overweight), effectively neutralized by the anonymous application
form. However, the applicant’s origin does not
appear to have an adverse impact in our sample, and
the anonymous application form has an heterogenous
effect on this variable, depending on the quality of the
application form. Furthermore, our results indicate
that recruiters personal characteristics (HR specialization and gender) have significant effects on their
assessment