The effect of applicant political skill on the race dissimilarity-recruiter recommendations relationship

The importance of recruiting minority candidates is increasing due to legal and strategic concerns. Although the majority of research in the area investigating race dissimilarity has been found to have significant negative effects on interviewing outcomes, the results have been inconsistent. Integrating our model into that proposed by Huffcutt, we attempt to better understand some of these inconsistencies by introducing political influence compatibility as a mediator between race dissimilarity and recruiter hiring recommendations. We further integrate political skill as a moderator to neutralise the negative impact of being racially dissimilar on political influence compatibility. The model was tested using data collected from actual interviews conducted in unstructured settings, and support was found for the hypotheses.