How does bias enter the employment interview? Identifying the riskiest applicant characteristics, interviewer characteristics, and sources of potentially biasing information.

The current study examines the riskiest forms and sources of potential bias in the employment interview. A mixed methods survey focused on interviewers' attention to various potentially biasing applicant characteristics, how interviewers learn about such characteristics, the traits of interviewers who are sensitive to such characteristics, and how knowledge of such characteristics affects interviewers' opinions of applicants. Participants were 680 professional interviewers from the U.S., U.K., and Canada. High risks of bias were associated with six applicant characteristics (as targets of bias), three interviewer characteristics (as predisposing toward bias), and three sources of information in the interview process. Interviewers commonly rationalized their judgments in job‐relevant terms. These results have implications for understanding and limiting the risk of common selection biases. Practitioner points: Six applicant characteristics were identified that most affected interviewer opinions.Interviewers usually learned such information from appropriate and often unavoidable channels.Disagreeable, socially dominant, and young interviewers were more swayed by biasing information.Interviewers rationalized potential biases in ostensibly job‐relevant language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]