Foreign Accents in the Early Hiring Process: A Field Experiment on Accent-Related Ethnic Discrimination in Germany

Based on a field experiment conducted in Germany between October 2014 and October 2015, this article focuses on the disadvantages associated with the presence of a foreign accent in the early hiring process, when applicants call in response to a job advertisement to ask whether the position is still available. We examine whether a foreign accent influences employers’ behaviors via productivity considerations and/or whether foreign-accented speech is related to statistical discrimination or tastes among employers or customers that translate into differential treatment. To address these processes, we supplement our field-experimental data with information on job and firm characteristics from the texts of vacancy announcements and advertising companies’ homepages, on labor supply from the Federal Employment Agency, and on anti-immigrant attitudes from the German General Social Survey. Results suggest that while calling with a Turkish name did not result in a lower rate of positive replies, this rate was reduced for candidates who called with a Turkish accent. Turkish-accented applicants were told more often than the advertised position was already filled. Our findings suggest that the difference in response rates was not due to productivity considerations related to how well individuals understood foreign-accented speakers. Instead, results support the notion that the observed disadvantages were linked to discrimination based on employers’ ethnic tastes. While we found no indications pointing to the relevance of customer tastes or statistical discrimination, we cannot rule out these processes altogether. Our findings demonstrate that language cues can be more relevant than applicants’ names in shaping employers’ initial responses. They, thereby, highlight the need to consider multiple ethnic cues and different stages of the hiring process.

Gender Representation in the Russian Recruitment Discourse (In Job Advertisements and Cvs)

The article describes gender representation peculiarities in the Russian discourse of employment, revealing the role of gender stereotypes in responding to a job advertisement and the ways employers inform candidates about the gender of the employee desired. We used the methods of content analysis and semantic interpretation, as well as ethnographic and quantitative methods. The corpus for analysis includes job advertisements and resumes that reflect the peculiarities of the interaction of languages and cultures in the context of globalization. The subject of the current research is gender representation ways in job advertisements and resumes in the Russian employment discourse. The results show that masculine gender predominance in the position names in job advertisements does not influence female candidates’ desire to apply for a job. Moreover, the research suggests that female candidates tend to apply for the professional spheres that were conventionally regarded as those of males, i.e., IT or telecom. At the same time, the resistance of Russian employment discourse to the global feminist one was reviled, as no so-called feminitives have been found in its corpus. The study demonstrates the growing influence of English-based patterns on Russian employment discourse conventions, expressed by informal, personalized, and individual-focused interaction with a candidate in job advertisements. The findings also indicate that professional skills and gender specificity of a professional sphere influence the desire of a candidate to apply for a job rather than a masculine gender in the vacancy name. Moreover, to implicit the gender of a candidate, employers can use either visual or text opportunities of a job advertisement. Besides, some cases of gender specificity blurring have been detected in the professional spheres that were conventionally considered as the ones for females (domestic staff or beauty sphere) where male candidates now tend to be of demand.

Efficient recruitment with effective job advertisement: an exploratory literature review and research agenda

PurposeThis article presents an exploratory, narrative review on job ads research. It aims to explore the key features of job ads that have been investigated in previous researches; the way these features have been investigated; and to draw important lessons that those studies teach us about the impact of job ad features on the target population.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the scoping-review procedure is applied. Its systematic procedure enables scholars to provide a broad overview of a topic, map the key concepts underpinning a research area, clarify the conceptual boundaries of a topic, and also to incorporate a numerical summary and qualitative thematic analysis. The review was conducted based on a systematic study of 243 peer-reviewed articles and publications in the grey literature.FindingsThe findings show that seven job ad features seem to have important impacts on (potential) applicants, which we illustrate as a know-how framework. Eight main theories are used, and a wide array of research methods are applied. However, the study concludes that after more than four decades of research, there is still a limited understanding about the concrete effects of job ad features.Originality/valueThis paper synthesizes the existing knowledge, answers three exploratory questions regarding job ad features and draws theoretical and practical lessons from previous studies. In the interest of conducting future studies and providing a research agenda, a typology of theoretical perspectives for the study of job ads is also presented. The article also presents lessons for practitioners by providing a know-how framework on the usage of job ads.

Laying Foundation to Advertisement Genre: An Analysis of Job Advertisement Discourse Made by the Royal Civil Service Commission of Bhutan

To lay foundation in the literature related to the genre of advertisements, this paper is a synchronic approach to study the job advertisements made by the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) of Bhutan. RCSC is the major recruiting agency of civil servants into a government job. As mandated, RCSC recruits thousands of fresh employees annually. RCSC features its job-related announcements in the media, mainly the Bhutan Broadcasting Service, the mainstream media and also in its official website. The data of this study was the ‘Vacancy Announcement’ dated January 8, 2020, featured in RCSC website and the analysis of the data was based on Swale’s (1990) Six Defining Characteristics of Discourse Community. The results showcased Bhutan as a bilingual society for informing the citizens as the job advertisements were delivered in both Dzongkha and English. RCSC’s format of job advertisement employed the common format used by most of the organisations. This study points that there is a need to look into some elements used by other organisations. Therefore, this study recommends RCSC, as the major recruiting agency in Bhutan, to incorporate other missing elements of job advertisement.

Skills and qualifications for the special library environment in Jamaica: a job advertisement analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine what employers seek when recruiting library and information professionals for a special library environment in Jamaica.Design/methodology/approachA content analysis of a sample of 47 advertisements for information professionals in a special library environment in Jamaica from 2013 to 2019 was collected.FindingsThe findings indicated that a variety of professional, generic and personal attributes were in demand for these professionals. There was a strong emphasis on advanced computer skills as well as communication and interpersonal skills.Research limitations/implicationsWhile job advertisements offer some insight into skills requirements and qualifications for employment, it may not reflect the actual person employed.Practical implicationsThis paper will provide useful information for library school educators, existing information professionals and those interested in entering the field as it provides an overview of the skills and requirements for jobs in the special library environment in Jamaica.Originality/valueDespite there being a plethora of job advertisements studies in librarianship, few studies examine advertisements for information professionals in a special library environment. To the best of the author's knowledge, there is no study focusing on Jamaica.

Humans Need Not Apply

Advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning (smart machines) impact understandings about the nature of work. For professionals, semi-professionals, and ancillary workers supplying healthcare and legal services, for example, smart machines change the social relations of work and subvert notions of status and hierarchy that come with occupational groups such as doctors or lawyers. As smart machines continue to disrupt employment, job advertisement might soon carry the warning that humans need not apply. Under the prospect of a new world of work, people require additional knowledge, skills, and attitudes to cope with a future where smart machines radically alter the nature of work in settings where some people work anywhere and anytime while others work nowhere. In any future, people require skills and attitudes to cope with uncertainty. Ideas about multiple intelligences, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving will help employees cope with any of the futures of work predicted in the literature.

Using Job Advertisements to Advance Event Management Research

Continued progress in the tourism industry and rapid technological advances have pointed to the continued need for well-educated managers in the event sector. Attempts at professionalizing have also identified formal tertiary education and industry training to be significant components in these efforts, and although there is a clear association between education and the needs of the industry, the correlation has often been questioned. This discussion examines the prevailing, but limited discourse on event management skills and attributes, analyzes its implications, and offers several explicit research propositions to advance knowledge using job advertisement analysis. These suggestions will be of benefit to formal education providers and the event sector as an international agenda for event management skilling is advanced.

Analysis of Secretary Job Advertisement Content for Secretarial Skills Needs

This paper aimed to identify and formulate the labor market demand on works skills for secretary indicated in job advertisements. The study conducted from February to July 2019. The particular research used content analysis with a qualitative approach. Data collection used documentation and focused on group discussion. The object of this research was job vacancy information for secretary in mass media and digital media. There were four stages of data analysis in this study. First, organizing and checking data. Second, rechecking data. Third, describing, summarizing, and organizing the coding containing categories that are more specific and distinguished from other categories. Fourth, conducting final analysis in making interpretation and drawing conclusions the research findings. The research discovered that the most needed of hard skill aspects for secretary are English language skill, Ms. Office and computer skill. Furthermore, the most needed of soft skill aspects are communication, attractive, and honest. Keywords: content analysis, worker skills, secretaryIdentifikasi Kebutuhan Keterampilan Sekretaris melalui Analisis Konten Lowongan PekerjaanAbstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan mengidentifikasi dan merumuskan permintaan pasar tenaga kerja pada keterampilan kerja bagi calon sekretaris dalam iklan lowongan pekerjaan. Penelitian ini menggunakan analisis konten dengan pendekatan kualitatif. Pengumpulan data menggunakan dokumentasi dan focus grup discussion. Objek penelitian ini adalah informasi lowongan pekerjaan untuk calon sekretaris di media cetak dan digital. Analisis data penelitian ini menggunakan tahap-tahap sebagai berikut: 1) mengorganisasi data dan memeriksa data dengan cermat, 2) melakukan pemeriksaan ulang terhadap data, 3) mendeskripsikan, meringkas, dan mengorganisasi pengodean yang berisi kategori-kategori yang sudah lebih spesifik dan terbedakan dari kategori lain, 4) melakukan analisis terakhir, membuat interpretasi dan kesimpulan akhir berisi hasil temuan penelitian. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa (1) aspek hard skill yang banyak ditemukan untuk calon sekretaris adalah kemampuan bahasa inggris, kemampuan Ms. Office dan keterampilan komputer. (2) aspek soft skill yang banyak ditemukan untuk calon sekretaris adalah keterampilan komunikasi, berpenampilan menarik dan jujur. Kata kunci: Analisis Konten, Keterampilan Pekerja, Sekretaris

There is Not One But Many AI: A Network Perspective on Regional Demand in AI Skills

This work proposes a network perspective in order to empirically identify the relevant ICT skills related to AI, to what extent they are systemically related, and how their composition varies across regions. With the example of 5,227 job openings from Germany advertised as postings in Artificial Intelligence, relevant skills are identified and connected in a network fashion. Two skills are connected, if they are jointly required by the same job advertisement. Similarly, regional skill networks can be constructed: Job postings are screened by city location and skill networks are constructed for this set of regional postings exclusively. The resulting networks depict the regional city ecosystem of AI skills currently in demand.