Making it onto the shortlist is often a crucial early step toward professional advancement. For under-represented candidates, one barrier to making the shortlist is the prevalence of informal recruitment practices (for example, colleague recommendations). The current research investigates informal shortlists generated in male-dominant domains (for example, technology executives) and tests a theory-driven intervention to increase the consideration of female candidates. Across ten studies (N = 5,741) we asked individuals to generate an informal shortlist of candidates for a male-dominant role and then asked them to extend the list. We consistently found more female candidates in the extended (versus initial) list. This longer shortlist effect occurs because continued response generation promotes divergence from the category prototype (for example, male technology executives). Studies 3 and 4 supported this mechanism, and study 5 tested the effect of shortlist length on selection decisions. This longer shortlist intervention is a low-cost and simple way to support gender equity efforts.

进入候选名单通常是迈向专业发展的关键早期步骤。对于代表性不足的候选人，进入候选名单的一个障碍是非正式招聘做法的普遍性（例如，同事推荐）。目前的研究调查了在男性主导领域（例如，技术主管）产生的非正式候选名单，并测试了一种理论驱动的干预措施，以增加对女性候选人的考虑。跨越十项研究（N = 5,741）我们要求个人为男性主导角色生成一份非正式候选名单，然后要求他们扩展名单。我们一直在扩展（相对于初始）列表中发现更多女性候选人。出现这种较长的候选名单效应是因为持续的响应生成促进了与类别原型的分歧（例如，男性技术主管）。研究 3 和 4 支持这种机制，研究 5 测试了候选名单长度对选择决策的影响。这种较长的候选名单干预是一种支持性别平等努力的低成本且简单的方法。