Equity at Work: The Complications of Hiring Only Who You Know

Searching and getting called back for a new job is not easy business. When I was out of work after quitting an emotionally abusive workplace, I would spend hours upon hours cold searching and cold applying to positions I would never hear back from. Disappointing, of course. But like most things, looking for jobs turns out to be another game of who you know rather than what skills you bring off the bat.

I read an article that highlighted a study finding that 60% of respondents report that someone they had worked with in the past helped them find their next job. 60%. That’s a lot. While I had a critique already locked and loaded, I’m glad the article’s author did at least give one nod to a crucial component of social networks: if a workplace is already homogenous, what’s the chance of that homogenous group extending opportunities to more marginalized communities?

“Hiring who you know from an already homogenous group only widens the opportunity and financial security gap for people of color.”

This phenomenon might not have a formal name, but I’ll suggest one: The Opportunity Funnel of Privilege. I like examples, so let’s expand a bit. A white student attends a prestigious university (because her socioeconomic privilege meant she grew up in an area with a strong education system that prepared her for college) and she had the chance to form a strong bond with one of her professors (because she didn’t have to work through college, this bond was easier to form and white people are more likely to find mentors). Her professor, himself regarded in his particular field, is so impressed with said student’s time commitment to the topic that he recommends student to one of his research friends at a prestigious think tank. The head of the think tank trusts this professor, and offers student an internship and a pathway to full-time employment out of college. The end.

Meanwhile, a student of color who could attend the college because of a scholarship, but needs to work part-time and who doesn’t understand the implicit rules of networking and mentorship will miss out on the exact same opportunity.

If you didn’t want to read any of that, the Opportunity Funnel of Privilege is essentially a self-enforced method of policing in-groups and out-groups that will only re-create inequities if hiring employers only rely on their networks of similar-looking people with similar backgrounds as themselves.

I have witnessed this myself throughout my career. When tasked with hiring interns I always look out for talent, rather than where they went to school. In fact, I have this renegade mentality that it’s my duty to give less emphasis to students with resumes stacked with prestigious internships and education, because that’s not who could most directly benefit from having professional experience. My own opinion: I personally couldn’t give a rat’s ass about an Ivy League education – the people I’ve felt most unimpressed with are never the ones who come from public colleges.

That’s all to say that without systematic and standardized criteria of what candidates need to be qualified for the position, hirers will always revert to their abstract ideas about what makes a good candidate. These ideas are usually based on their own limited worldviews, their own unconscious preferences to create in-groups of people who look like them, and lack of awareness about how a (well-paying) job is a key to economic stability that many marginalized communities may not have easy access to. Hiring who you know from an already homogenous group only widens the opportunity and financial security gap for people of color.