As hiring practices adapt during the pandemic, the turn towards virtual interviews and skills assessments has exacerbated the accessibility barriers that low-income and minority applicants face. A survey conducted by job listings website Indeed.com found that out of 500 employers across 16 sectors and 12 cities, more than four in five employers have started virtual hiring during the pandemic. Yet, far fewer, 26%, found the virtual hiring process effective, with 22% believing the shift was the right way forward, while acknowledging present challenges.
The companies hiring amid record national-wide levels of unemployment and layoffs lie mostly in the transportation and warehousing, professional and business services, health care, manufacturing, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and construction industries, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Employment Situation Summary for November. Historically, many of these industries pull from an applicant pool that may face challenges such as a lack of distraction-free space and limited access to technology.
Asian American Civic Association’s Careers in Banking and Finance program witnessed several cases where an applicant couldn’t go through with a virtual interview, not because of their qualifications, but because of accessibility. “This pandemic, in terms of hiring, really left out a lot of moms or parents with younger kids,” said Robin Wood, CBF program manager at the time. “If you have a house full of kids and only one computer, how are you going to take a Zoom interview when someone is in second grade at the same time?”
Wood added that single parents, people in homeless shelters, and those who previously relied on library computers or borrowed devices experienced extreme difficulty. She explained that applicants might only have access to a cellphone — hindering their ability to search for a job, update and send a resume, and participate in a virtual interview.
A WayUp survey of college students and recent graduates indicated that minority candidates are significantly more worried about having the appropriate setup at home for virtual interviewing and work. In particular, Black and Hispanic are 145% more likely to feel concerned about whether they are capable of doing a job remotely than White candidates.
Female candidates were 70% more likely than male ones to cite having the right technology and resources as one of the most concerning features of remote work. This, in combination with women taking on more homeschooling and childbearing duties after daycare and school closures, may be why the percentage of women successfully getting hired fell in lockdown, while that of men rose. A National Women’s Law Center analysis revealed that in September, women gained about 2 in 5 of the jobs added to the economy, although they make up about half of the workforce.
Inequality within access to the tools necessary to effectively interview remotely carries over to other parts of the applicant selection process, namely skills assessment tests. Though skills tests were commonly used in the hiring process long before the pandemic, employers rely on and valuing them more in a virtual environment. Many employers ask their applicants to take one, aiming to narrow down candidates post-interview or when deciding who to interview in the first place. According to Wood, such assessments tend to be lengthy, full of double-negatives, and words and phrases that may not be familiar to candidates who speak English as a second language.
Language and technological barriers are likely to intensify as data suggests virtual shifts in hiring practices are here to stay. “Companies will be hiring for people who can go remotely, and do have the technological skills to go remotely because they were caught off guard when they had to send everybody home with laptops,” Wood said.
Recruiters have already begun heavily testing and investing in technologies to help them evolve towards an increasingly automated and digitalized applicant screening process. Research by JobVite showed that 58% of over 200 recruiters across industries are now using social media networks, like LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, to recruit and connect with potential hires. Text messaging, chatbots, and AI are also growing more popular for communicating and updating candidates throughout the hiring process.
Most recently, companies have turned towards interviews without a human interviewer, asking job applicants to video record answers to set questions instead. These may be accompanied by personality tests or games, which are also conducted virtually, to gauge applicants’ personal qualities.
Kimberly Reingold, director of external communications at Fidelity Investments, said that over the last ten months, they’ve changed their hiring process to include “interviews via video, and positions that include flexible schedules, remote learning and training, and work from home.” Their onboarding process was also primarily digital, though they offered shipping of laptops and other equipment and remote access to technology services for set-up and questions.
The new technologies are used most frequently to evaluate candidates applying to high-turnover hourly jobs, such as fast-food workers, phone representatives or warehouse employees, according to the New York Times. In these cases, internet connection issues or inexperience with the recording technology may be an automatic disqualifier — demonstrating that familiarity with technology is needed on top of access.
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