Understanding Applicant Withdrawal: Can Organizations Prevent it and Should They Even Try?

The process of applicant self‐selection has received significant attention in the academic literature. However, scant attention has been devoted to parsing out controllable from uncontrollable reasons for applicant withdrawal. At a most basic level, recognition and management of the problems impeding test availability to an applicant is a starting point. This research aimed to gain a better understanding of why applicants withdraw from the selection process, after application, by investigating differential reasons for withdrawal based on minority status and test accessibility for individual applicants. This was accomplished by surveying applicants of an entry‐level position within a variety of locations. The results indicate that the reasons for withdrawal are best described as obstructions (e.g., distance to testing facility) and are based less upon differences between minority subgroup and cognitive evaluations/attributions concerning the suitability of the focal position.