A new study has found that fewer members of minority groups than white candidates choose Web-based job applications. JobApp Network, which provides both telephone and Web application methods, found that minority candidates used the Web far less often than their white counterparts. The network helps clients hire hourly workers for restaurants, retail, distribution, health care, and hospitality.

Eight out of 10 U.S. adults have Internet access, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, but convenient access is clearly not available to all of them. In an 18-month study of more than 21,000 job applicants among JobApp’s clients, the firm’s researcher, Edgar F. Johns, found that 80.9 percent of white candidates applied using the Web, while only 58.7 percent of minorities did so. The remainder of applicants, 19.1 percent of whites and 41.3 percent of minorities, chose to apply by phone. For study purposes, only people identifying themselves as “white not of Hispanic origin” were considered nonminority, while all minorities—African American, Hispanic or Latino, and others—were all grouped together. Both options, Web and phone, were available in either English or Spanish, and JobApp researchers found that Spanish-speaking applicants usually chose to apply by phone. The firm characterizes the applicants that its clients seek as “young, mobile, and ethnically diverse,” noting that its systems are especially designed to be convenient for such candidates.

Johns is a statistician and psychometrician—meaning someone who measures mental traits, abilities, and processes. Again using Pew Internet data, Johns noted that “only 55 percent of U.S. households have broadband Internet access.” He also found a significant correlation between Internet use and income, writing that “as one travels up the income scale, Internet access increases significantly. Americans with incomes greater than $75,000 are more than 2.5 times more likely to have Internet access than Americans with incomes of less than $30,000.” JobApp’s CEO, Blake Helppie, chimes in, “This research essentially confirms what many of our customers already knew.

“Employers who adopt Web-only hiring management may unwittingly exclude minorities,” Helppie continues. And Johns notes that Web-only systems also limit employers’ hiring pools. But you may be thinking, “I use the Web because it’s automated and efficient, so it’s inexpensive. I can’t afford to devote time and people to telephone recruiting.” Personal phone interviews are especially likely to generate high costs for the kinds of employers that JobApps targets—those tending to have high turnover. A deeper reading of JobApp’s material, though, turns up terms like “phone-based” and IVR, or interactive voice response, systems.

Moreover, the firm reports that Web and phone hiring reflect virtually identical processes, collecting the same information through different media—“the application process is the same in every respect except one: in the telephone delivery method, questions are presented verbally and responses are given verbally or using the touchpad,” Johns explains. In other words, the phone-based system is as automated as the Web system.

If you’re like us, you’ve had bad experiences with IVR systems. So on request, we tried JobApps’ version. The process begins with a “commercial” for the client company, and then collects the caller’s name, Social Security number, contact information, and preferred work schedule (full-time, part-time, days available to work). Along the way, the caller hears encouraging messages and moves back and forth from a recorded voice tailored to the particular employer and an auto-generated voice that explains how to record needed data. The applicant is told often that hiring managers in his or her area will call to conduct further interviews. Finally, the caller is urged to record a “self-sales pitch”—a summary of work experience and why he or she would be an asset to the client company. Clearly, this is an IVR that works for applicants and for hiring managers.

For more information on the study, see an article by Freakonomics co-author Steven D. Levitt at freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/the-adverse-impact-of-web-based-hiring-on-minorities. Meanwhile, you should vary your hiring methods.