Removing Cronyism in Undergraduate Team Member Selection

Joseph M. Goodman; Brittany Owens; Keith Credo

Joseph M. Goodman

University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Brittany Owens

Louisiana State University, USA

Keith Credo

University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Volume 17: 2024, pp. 167-184; ABSTRACT

Conventional wisdom suggests employers “hire hard, manage easy”, but entry-level employees generally lack the experience to adequately screen and select candidates. Selection biases tend to reduce effectiveness of the hiring process, particularly amongst managers unfamiliar with the selection process and the role of some common implicit biases (e.g. “halo” and “horn” effects, familiarity bias, and similarity bias). This manuscript describes a team member selection activity that not only removes tendencies towards cronyism in self-selected student groups, but also trains undergraduate Project Managers to select team members through a masked applicant pool. The method combines a variety of tools that hiring managers and human resource professionals commonly use when selecting individuals for organizations and work or task teams. Project Managers “draft” the members of their project groups using unidentifiable data points from cognitive tests, personality surveys, and self-reported skill data. A rationale for the procedure, the selection process, and student reflections are presented. Additional teaching notes are included for instructors wishing to adopt this hiring simulation activity to both raise student awareness of implicit bias in selection processes, and potentially reduce implicit biases among future managers.

Keywords: halo/horns, selection bias, student project, active learning, simulation, blind selection, Big 5, tolerance for ambiguity.