I think I got your attention with that headline. And if you look at recommendations of recommendations that are analyzed in a New study, You would think this is the case.
The authors of the study first analyzed the applications for postdoc and university teacher Roles in a British academic institution between 2017 and 22021. In total they have classified around 9,000 recommendations, written by more than 4,000 referees for around 2,900 applications. They have classified the recommendation letters based on the type of skills. These recommendations were aimed at the assets of the candidate (his or her cognitive skills and natural talent), or the perseverance and the hard work of the candidate (which the authors call a letter of recommendation “gravelstone”). Of course there were also recommendations that emphasized both skills, as well as more neutral letters that did not emphasize special skills.
They discovered that in the Academic Survey Female candidates had 3.5% less chance of getting a letter of recommendation that emphasize their assets and 2.8% more likely to get a letter of recommendation that emphasizes their hard work and perseverance.
This small difference in the type of recommendation letter written for male and female candidates can have a significant impact on their work perspectives. In two experiments, one study among 506 academics and 514 recruiters, the other an online experiment with C.1,000 volunteers, they showed that a male candidate with a luig letter letter is considerably more likely to be hired than a female candidate. Female candidates with a Grindstone recommendation letter indeed have about 14% less chance of getting a job in a top-200 academic institution than men with the same letter of recommendation.
Hiring share for different types of recommendation letters
Source: Hochleitner et al. (2025)
The beauty (if you want to call it that) is that the researchers can trace the motivations behind the type of recommendation letters and the selected candidates. As part of the experiments, the referees and recruiters were asked to answer a series of questions that were aimed at their views on the strengths and weaknesses of men versus women.
The graph below shows the differences in the probability to hire a female candidate by recruiters who showed stereotypical beliefs that women distinguish themselves more through hard work instead of innate capacity, compared to recruiters who do not show this kind of stereotypical behavior. If you are a female candidate who applies for a job with a grindstone recommendation letter and a recruiter with stereotypical views that you evaluate, you are much less likely to get the job.
Opportunity to be hired as a female candidate
Source: Hochleitner et al. (2025)
This is the problem with the claims about hiring on the basis of merit. There are plenty of people in the neighborhood who have stereotypical and biased views about men versus women that women are less likely to be praised for their talents. And when they apply for a job, they tend to lose against candidates who are experienced as more talented.
#men #skills #women