"We found the opposite, that de-identifying candidates reduced the likelihood of women being selected for the shortlist."
By Henry Belot: A measure aimed at boosting female employment in the workforce may actually be making it worse, a major study has found.Leaders of the Australian public service will today be told to "hit pause" on blind recruitment trials, which many believed would increase the number of women in senior positions.
Blind recruitment means recruiters cannot tell the gender of candidates because those details are removed from applications.
It is seen as an alternative to gender quotas and has also been embraced by Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Victoria Police and Westpac Bank.
In a bid to eliminate sexism, thousands of public servants have been told to pick recruits who have had all mention of their gender and ethnic background stripped from their CVs.
The assumption behind the trial is that management will hire more women when they can only consider the professional merits of candidates.
Their choices have been monitored by behavioural economists in the Prime Minister's department - colloquially known as "the nudge unit".