The paper reports the first systematic audit of open‑weight large language models (LLMs) in hiring contexts, examining how job‑posting language influences recruiter and job‑seeker simulations across six models. It finds that agentic language lowers recruiter scores for female candidates while communal language mitigates this effect, and that coded‑exclusion language sharply reduces recruiter scores for non‑White candidates and discourages non‑White personas from applying. The study also identifies the explicit demographic label as the main causal factor and proposes a concrete pre‑deployment audit protocol aligned with EU and U.S. regulatory requirements.
By Kosuke Kitahara, Nobuhiro Yamaguchi
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in hiring workflows, yet most research on gender bias in LLM hiring decisions has focused on English-language, Western-format resumes. This study examines whether pro-female gender bias extends to a Japanese corporate context and evaluates two practical mitigation strategies.
arXiv:2607. 28934v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly involved in the distribution of scarce resources, raising concerns about biased allocations based on characteristics like race and gender.
By Martin Lukk (University of Toronto)
The paper investigates whether language models still encode occupational biases even when they appear unbiased in behavioral tests. Using a causal framework, the authors separate bias into internal representations of user competence and observable outputs, deriving steering vectors that show these representations influence model behavior in question‑answering and hiring tasks. Across several open‑weight models, demographic factors such as gender, race, and socioeconomic status affect the models’ internal competence representations, revealing hidden bias that behavioral metrics alone may miss.
By Keren Fuentes, Aaron Mueller
arXiv:2604.19984v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Research has documented LLMs' name-based bias in hiring and salary recommendations. In this paper, we instead consider a setting where LLMs g...
By Huy Nghiem, Phuong-Anh Nguyen-Le, Sy-Tuyen Ho, Hal Daume III
As Large Language Models are increasingly deployed in critical applications, robustly evaluating their social biases is paramount. However, the current literature suffers from widespread methodological fragmentation, which yields contradictory conclusions.