Definition
Selection rate
The proportion of candidates from a given group who pass a particular stage of a hiring process.
Last reviewed
In practice
It is the input to every adverse-impact calculation, and it is stage-specific. A selection rate for a whole process averages away the stage that is actually producing a disparity, which is usually the thing you were trying to find.
Calculating it requires demographic data, which has to be collected voluntarily and kept away from anything that scores or ranks candidates. The categories exist to measure the outcome, and letting them influence the decision is precisely the harm the measurement is meant to detect.
Small denominators make the number unstable rather than merely imprecise. Serious analysis sets a floor below which a rate is reported but never acted on.
Related
Adverse impact
A substantially different rate of selection for a protected group resulting from a neutral-seeming employment practice, whether or not anyone intended it.
Four-fifths rule
A screening test for adverse impact: a selection rate below four-fifths of the highest group’s rate is evidence of adverse impact requiring investigation.
Bias audit
An assessment of whether a hiring tool produces different selection rates across protected groups, performed by a party independent of the tool’s vendor.
Read further
Longer pieces on this and the arguments around it.
The four-fifths rule: how to test your hiring for adverse impact
The four-fifths rule is a rule of thumb, not a legal safe harbour. How to calculate it, where it misleads, and how to find the stage causing the disparity.
Read