If a manager seeking to fill an open position imagines the ‘ideal’ employee before searching for an applicant, the result may be increased stereotyping, says a team led by Jazmin L. Brown-Iannuzzi of the University of North Carolina. Participants who were asked to imagine an ideal worker were more likely to envision a white employee; their likelihood of picturing a black candidate was near zero. Afterwards participants who had imagined an ideal employee ranked a job applicant with a stereotypically black name less favourably than applicants with white names.

(Source: Group Processes & Intergroup Relations)

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, November 30th, 2015