Gerrymandering in personnel selection: A review of practice

Gerrymandering personnel selection systems is defined as those practices explicitly intended to improve the outcomes of individual applicants or groups of applicants to the detriment of other individuals and groups. Gerrymandering can serve a variety of purposes, such as enhancing demographic diversity, rewarding political allies, or giving hiring preference to specific individuals. This paper reviews eleven strategies for gerrymandering personnel selection systems. The strategies fall into three categories of decisions: decisions in choosing or designing personnel selection tools; decisions in scoring personnel selection tools; decisions in selecting among passing applicants. Perspectives on the appropriateness and ethics of gerrymandering are then reviewed.