| In fairness to the study, the way they brought the subject up was pretty well done. In all the cover letters (both with and without disability) they stated that the candidate volunteered for a disability charity and that their work there meant that they had experience in working with people in a supervisory capacity. In the disability letters they added that they had the disability and wanted to help others with it. Having read a fair few CVs myself, I think they all read fairly innocuously. My only comment on the way it was written (as an employer) is that the novice letters read better than the experience ones: having supervisory experience for a graddie is a plus; but a bit of a red flag for a senior role (why would you mention it, don't you have it in your day job?) I think the most likely explanation for the finding is in the breakdown by company size. The government and fed contractors were, more or less, without bias (in some cases with a small bias towards the applicants with disabilities). By far the largest bias was in small firms. If I were to hazard a guess it will be at least partly due to a perceived cost in recruiting people with disabilities (which is presumably why they are exempt from ADA in the first place). But the study didn't pursue this. |