Hiring into Entry Level Positions

In this example, an accurate model of the hiring process showed African Americans were favored in hiring, despite the opposing expert’s claims to the contrary.

The opposing expert failed to account for weekend availability, and other key considerations, in modeling the hiring processes at a national big-box retailer. He claimed the defendant hired fewer African American applicants than expected.

Through communications with the client and careful investigation of the data, we learned that an applicant’s availability to work weekend shifts was a key consideration in deciding whom to hire. Those available to work all of the weekend shifts were more than twice as likely to be hired as applicants who were unwilling to work any weekend shifts. Our analysis correctly incorporated this aspect of the hiring process and our results showed that the number of African American hires was actually higher than would have been predicted by a race-neutral model.