Constructing Quality in the Hiring Process: Employers’ Justifications for Selection Criteria

How employers justify their selection criteria when hiring skilled personnel is central to understanding the (re)production of inequalities in the labor market. Following the Sociology of Conventions, quality is constructed by justifying what is valued and how it is assessed (Boltanski/Thévenot 2018; Eymard-Duvernay/Marchal 1997). In hiring processes, applicants’ qualifications are constructed through negotiating and assessing selection criteria (Ali/Brandl 2018; Lendaro/Imdorf 2012; Widmer 2012). The Regimes of Engagement approach distinguishes these justification situations from situations in which actors follow personal plans or act out of familiarity (Thévenot 2001, 2023). This paper contributes to the limited research on hiring that combines both approaches by asking: How are selection criteria for skilled personnel justified? Can patterns of meaning be identified? If so, are these related to characteristics of occupational fields, companies and recruiters?

Using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun/Clarke 2022), we analyzed 35 interviews with those responsible for filling job vacancies in six occupational fields in Switzerland. We coded inductively through a theoretical lens. Codes that shared patterns of meaning in the dataset were categorized to construct themes that address our research questions.

Preliminary results show a variety of justifications for selection criteria as well as selection criteria that were not justified. For example, recruiters justify team fit as a selection criterion with various conventional values such as efficiency and tradition. This differs depending on company size. Team fit is assessed with socio-demographic characteristics of the previous team composition, but also with the recruiters’ gut feeling. In contrast, job-specific educational credentials and professional experience act as must-have criteria. Here, recruiters act out of familiarity, without having to justify these criteria. However, companies faced with skills shortages negotiate these criteria and justify alternative criteria and assessments.

This shows that our analysis will help understanding current selection of skilled personnel and identifying which aspects (re)produce inequalities.