Concrete Diversity Goals Attract Female Applicants, but Managers Resist Using Them

Many organizations struggle to attract a demographically diverse workforce. Can adding a concrete goal to a public diversity commitment (e.g., “We care about diversity” versus “We care about diversity and plan to hire at least one woman or racial minority for every White man we hire”) help organizations attract applications from historically marginalized groups? Concrete diversity goals could raise belongingness concerns amongst marginalized group members worried that their hiring will serve as a means to an end. However, we propose that concrete goals will also signal that marginalized group members are more likely to be hired, and that these strategic considerations will dominate marginalized job seekers’ decision-making. In a preregistered field experiment (n=5,557), including concrete diversity goals in job advertisements increased application likelihood among marginalized group members—women and racial minorities—by a regression-estimated 6.2%, without sacrifices to candidate quality. These effects were driven by women, who were a regression-estimated 8.0% more likely to apply to job advertisements with concrete diversity goals, while racial minorities were only 3.0% more likely to apply. Follow-up data (n=495 women, preregistered) suggest that concrete diversity goals serve as stronger signals of hiring likelihood and may increase organizational attraction as a result. Hiring managers (n=298, preregistered) recognize that concrete goals are likely to attract a more diverse applicant pool but find them morally aversive and so hesitate to use them. We discuss the implications of our results for goal setting theory and consider how moral discomfort may impede the success of diversity initiatives.