Unintended Consequences of Transparency During Personnel Selection: Benefitting some candidates, but harming others?

Past research suggests that transparency during personnel selection procedures, that is, revealing to candidates the dimensions on which their performance is being assessed, increases both fairness and candidates’ performance. Two experiments challenge this assumption and propose that this effect only holds for nonthreatening performance dimensions. Yet, when the dimension revealed targets candidates with a negative stereotype, their performance may suffer. In Study 1, both men and women performed better when they learned that a selection simulation targeted planning skills. Yet, when women learned that the simulation targeted leadership skills, they performed worse. Study 2 revealed a marginally significant interaction between transparency condition, gender, and stigma consciousness. In summary, transparency during personnel selection may, thus, benefit only some groups of candidates while hurting others.