IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/f52a7.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Cybervetting Valuable?

Author

Listed:
  • Wilcox, Annika

    (North Carolina State University)

  • Damarin, Amanda K.
  • McDonald, Steve

    (North Carolina State University)

Abstract

Cybervetting is the widespread practice of employers culling information from social media and/or other internet sources to screen and select job candidates. Research evaluating online screening is still in its infancy; that which exists often assumes that it offers value and utility to employers as long as they can avoid discrimination claims. Given the increasing prevalence of cybervetting, it is extremely important to probe its challenges and limitations. We seek to initiate a discussion about the negative consequences of online screening and how they can be overcome. We draw on previous literature and our own data to assess the implications of cybervetting for three key stakeholders: job candidates, hiring agents, and organizations. We also discuss future actions these stakeholders can take to manage and ameliorate harmful outcomes of cybervetting. We argue that it is the responsibility of the organizations engaged in cybervetting to identify specific goals, develop formal policies and practices, and continuously evaluate outcomes so that negative societal consequences are minimized. Should they fail to do so, professional and industry associations as well as government can and should hold them accountable.

Suggested Citation

  • Wilcox, Annika & Damarin, Amanda K. & McDonald, Steve, 2022. "Is Cybervetting Valuable?," OSF Preprints f52a7, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:f52a7
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/f52a7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/621e9853c9d54200e0a28137/
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/f52a7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2015. "Discrimination in the Credential Society: An Audit Study of Race and College Selectivity in the Labor Market," SocArXiv 6qjue, Center for Open Science.
    2. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    3. Leigh Clark & Sherry Roberts, 2010. "Employer’s Use of Social Networking Sites: A Socially Irresponsible Practice," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 95(4), pages 507-525, September.
    4. Pager, Devah & Western, Bruce & Bonikowski, Bart, 2009. "Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 4469, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Gershon, Ilana, 2017. "Down and Out in the New Economy," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226452142.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    2. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Ooi, Evarn & Slonim, Robert, 2017. "Racial discrimination and white first name adoption: a field experiment in the Australian labour market," Working Papers 2017-15, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    3. Anthony Edo & Nicolas Jacquemet & Constantine Yannelis, 2019. "Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 349-376, March.
    4. Button, Patrick & Walker, Brigham, 2020. "Employment discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the United States: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. Morten Størling Hedegaard & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "The Price of Prejudice," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 40-63, January.
    6. Nicolás Ajzenman & Bruno Ferman & Sant’Anna Pedro C., 2023. "Discrimination in the Formation of Academic Networks: A Field Experiment on #EconTwitter," Working Papers 235, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    7. Eva O. Arceo-Gomez & Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez, 2014. "Race and Marriage in the Labor Market: A Discrimination Correspondence Study in a Developing Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 376-380, May.
    8. Patricia Funjika & Rachel M. Gisselquist, 2020. "Social mobility and inequality between groups," WIDER Working Paper Series wp2020-12, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Mahmood Arai & Moa Bursell & Lena Nekby, 2011. "The Reverse Gender Gap in Ethnic Discrimination: Employer Priors against Men and Women with Arabic Names," DULBEA Working Papers 11-09, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Baert, Stijn, 2017. "Hiring Discrimination: An Overview of (Almost) All Correspondence Experiments Since 2005," GLO Discussion Paper Series 61, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2018. "Do Equal Employment Opportunity Statements Backfire? Evidence From A Natural Field Experiment On Job-Entry Decisions," NBER Working Papers 25035, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Abigail Weitzman & Dalton Conley, 2014. "From Assortative to Ashortative Coupling: Men's Height, Height Heterogamy, and Relationship Dynamics in the United States," NBER Working Papers 20402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Karla Hoff, 2016. "Behavioral Economics and Social Exclusion: Can Interventions Overcome Prejudice?," International Economic Association Series, in: Kaushik Basu & Joseph E. Stiglitz (ed.), Inequality and Growth: Patterns and Policy, chapter 6, pages 172-200, Palgrave Macmillan.
    14. Tjaden, Jasper Dag & Schwemmer, Carsten & Khadjavi, Menusch, 2018. "Ride with Me - Ethnic Discrimination, Social Markets and the Sharing Economy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 418-432.
    15. Michael Rochlitz & Evgeniya Mitrokhina & Irina Nizovkina, 2020. "Bureaucratic Discrimination in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes: Experimental Evidence from Russia," Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation 2010, University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.
    16. Marina Mileo Gorzig & Deborah Rho, 2022. "The effect of the 2016 United States presidential election on employment discrimination," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 45-88, January.
    17. Kuhn, Florian & Chanci, Luis, 2024. "Racial disparities in labor outcomes: The effects of hiring discrimination over the business cycle," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 801-817.
    18. Zheng Fang & Chris Sakellariou, 2013. "Discrimination in the Equilibrium Search Model with Wage-Tenure Contracts," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(2), pages 451-480, November.
    19. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    20. Lippens, Louis & Vermeiren, Siel & Baert, Stijn, 2023. "The state of hiring discrimination: A meta-analysis of (almost) all recent correspondence experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:f52a7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.