Organizations can use many different strategies to combat hiring discrimination. Previous research shows that both strategies addressing evaluator bias (preferences for/against certain groups of candidates) and evaluator error (insensitivity to candidate quality) effectively reduce discrimination. However, drawing from theories of discrimination prototypes, we propose that evaluator bias (vs. error) is seen as more prototypical of hiring discrimination and thus bias-focused strategies are perceived as more relevant to discrimination reduction. We find support for this prediction across samples of recruiters, hiring managers, and HR professionals. Notably, consistent with research on diversity initiative framing, we also find that hiring managers prefer to learn about error-reducing (vs. bias-reducing) hiring strategies, as error reduction is perceived as more relevant to organizational performance. Practically, our findings suggest that focusing on accuracy in hiring may be a neglected route to discrimination reduction and also one that may incite less resistance than a focus on bias.
