Employability is defined as the capacity to gain and retain formal employment, or find new employment if necessary. Reasons for unemployment are often attributed to economic factors, but psychological factors associated with employability also contribute to the problem. Consequently, industrial-organizational psychologists should be uniquely suited to contribute to policy solutions for enhancing employability. This review begins by surveying the most common research approach to employability—the study of career success—which psychologists believe is determined by cognitive abilities, personality, and educational achievement. Next, we review the literature concerning what employers actually want. This section highlights the importance of social skills (being rewarding to deal with) as a key determinant of employability. We conclude by proposing a model for understanding the psychological determinants of employability and for bridging the gap between what psychologists prescribe and what employers want.

In their focal article, Hogan, Chamorro-Premuzic, and Kaiser (2013) define career success objectively “in terms of occupational prestige and financial attainment.” However, it is clear from the careers literature that workers in early, mid, and late career are likely to define both subjective and objective career success differently (Wang, Olson, & Shultz, 2013). Therefore, we recommend an expanded definition of career success that includes both subjective and objective measures when exploring the relationship between employability and career success across individuals' careers.

The focal article by Hogan, Chamorro-Premuzic, and Kaiser is timely. With persistently high unemployment levels in the United States and across the globe it is clear that we need not only an understanding of what makes people successful in the jobs that they have but also an understanding of how to get them into the workforce and keep them there. To make the problem even clearer, consider the fact that despite the high unemployment rates and increasing numbers of students attending college, there are an estimated 3.5 million unfilled job openings (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm) at this very moment. Industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologists need to come to a better understanding of the nature of this problem and the potential solutions. The focal article represents an important first step in this process, but we believe that there are some areas of neglect in the model presented. In particular, we would like to focus our commentary on the development of both character and knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for employment.

In their lead article, Hogan, Chamorro-Premuzic, and Kaiser (2013) suggested that the topic of employability has been below the radar of most, if not all, industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologists' research activities. Although we agree that research addressing employability is scarce in the mainstream I–O journals, we argue that I–O psychologists involved in the training of future I–O psychologists have addressed the employability of their graduates as a sustainability factor for I–O graduate programs (Munson, Phillips, Clark, & Mueller-Hanson, 2004). In addition, those who teach undergraduates, including undergraduates with an interest in the I–O area, also establish internships to enhance the employability of their graduates (e.g., Bott, Stuhlmacher, & Powaser, 2006; Carducci et al., 1987).

By examining the psychological determinants of employability, Hogan, Chamorro-Premuzic, and Kaiser's (2013) model of employability provides a framework for exploring the hurdles that applicants with stigmatizing conditions must overcome in selection contexts. Specifically, the most qualified applicants not only must be willing and able to do the job, but they also must be rewarding to deal with. Reframing selection research in terms of perceptions of employability calls attention to the subjective decisions that continue to disadvantage members of stigmatized groups. Our comments address several issues with respect to the desirability of compensatory selection procedures that emphasize perceptions of social desirability and P–O fit.

Hugo Munsterberg, the father of our field, created the structure of our applied psychology theory in his Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (1913). His three research questions were (a) “How we can find the men whose mental qualities make them best fitted for work which they do?” (b) “Under what psychological conditions we can secure the greatest and most satisfactory output of work from every man?” (c) “How we can produce most completely the influences of human minds which are desired in the interest of business?”

There has been no more fundamental concept in the field of industrial and organizational (I–O) psychology than “employability,” whereby individuals seek to gain and retain jobs with organizations, and organizations desire to attract and keep quality employees. Indeed, theory, research, and practice in the field continually have sought to identify the best predictors of performance and career success. Expansion of the predictor and criterion domains has been a focus of scholarly and practical concern for at least the past couple of decades, as we have realized that the fundamental nature of work, jobs, and organization have changed considerably in U.S. organizations.

This article focuses attention on research examining workplace discrimination against employees from marginalized groups. We particularly consider the experiences of seven different groups of marginalized individuals, some of which have legal protection and some of which do not but all of whom we feel have been overlooked by the field of industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology. We briefly describe the importance of studying each group and then delineate the brief amount of research that has been conducted. Finally, we make recommendations for I–O psychologists in terms of research and advocacy. Overall, we argue that I–O psychologists are missing an opportunity to be at the forefront of understanding and instigating changes that would result in maximizing the fairness and optimization of these often forgotten employees and their experiences in the workplace.

In their focal article, Ruggs et al. (2013) outline the missed opportunities for researchers within industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology in examining marginalized employees. The authors identify seven groups as having been overlooked by I–O psychologists and thus deserving greater attention in the future. They conclude their focal article by noting that, “Instead of being on the front line serving as scientists and allies for those who are marginalized and treated poorly, we have let these individuals take a backseat while we have gone fishing.” We disagree with this assertion. It is not that we have gone fishing and ignored marginalized employees. Rather, we have gone fishing, in rough waters, to locate hard-to-find fish. We are not purposefully ignoring marginalized employees. On the contrary, we are conducting research while battling numerical representation issues and ethical and administration issues. The focus of our commentary is to highlight these challenges and offer suggestions for addressing them in an effort to assist researchers in actually doing what the authors of the focal article are calling for them to do—to successfully engage in more focused research on these under-represented members of the workforce.

This article extends the assertion by Ruggs et al. (2013) that industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologists have underresearched discrimination against marginalized groups other than African Americans (race-Black) and women. We examined the research published in the top social psychology journals on workplace discrimination with regard to Ruggs et al.'s seven marginalized groups. Restricting the review to I–O journals, as was done by Ruggs et al., may provide a limited view of available research. As research on discrimination against marginalized groups by its nature draws heavily from sociopsychological concepts, such as stereotyping, prejudice, outgroups, and social identity (Landy 2008; Nadler & Stockdale, 2012), it would follow that these outlets may be where such research is being published. Perhaps I–O journals have a stronger preference than social psychology journals for methodologies such as the use of field samples that are difficult for discrimination scholars to use. This preference may possibly lead to higher publication rates of such research in social psychology journals. Without examining both types of journals, the picture of research conducted on discrimination against marginalized groups is incomplete. Thus, the questions we address in this commentary are as follows: Is research on discrimination against marginalized groups being published in top-tier social psychological journals at greater frequency than top-tier I–O journals, and do some marginalized groups (excluding Blacks and women) receive more or less attention in I–O compared to social psychology journals?

Ruggs et al. (2013) argued that industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologists have “gone fishing” insofar as we (as a field) have neglected conducting research on minority groups in the workplace. They offer interesting and insightful suggestions for researching the seven groups named in their paper. We believe that many of these ideas can be extended to other minority groups as well. It is our sincere hope that the focal article will attract the attention of both new and established researchers interested in studying minority group members' experiences in the workplace. We also hope that the article will validate and motivate researchers who already study these issues and confirm the importance of including minority perspectives in the I–O literature.

In their focal article “Gone fishing,” Ruggs et al. (2013) suggest that members of marginalized groups, such as ethnic/racial minorities other than Blacks, receive too little attention in top-tier industrial and organizational (I–O) psychology journals. Although we acknowledge the particularities each stigmatized group must face in the workplace and society, our commentary pleads for a better understanding of (a) general, underlying processes of discrimination across stigmatized groups while taking (b) complexity of discrimination into consideration. Whereas we concur with the authors regarding the need for more research, relevant studies on employment discrimination—even on the marginalized groups mentioned in the focal article—have been published, albeit many of them outside the focal I–O psychology journals mentioned and even outside the I–O psychology field. We believe that employment discrimination research might further benefit from (c) triangulation and (d) cross-cultural validation to advance insights, two other aspects that the focal article only slightly touched upon. We will illustrate these four challenges for future research on employment discrimination in I–O psychology with findings on hiring discrimination of Arab ethnics, one of the marginalized groups in the focal article, and one to which we have devoted considerable research effort.

As diversity researchers, it is encouraging to see seasoned scholars discussing the need to study demographic populations that have been historically silenced in our literature. At the same time, although studying singular identities (such as gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, ability, and size) is useful in demonstrating the unique experiences of members of individual groups, investigating the intersection of multiple identities will ultimately provide us with a more holistic perspective on the impact of identity at work. The focal article by Ruggs et al. (2013) suggests this but also underscores the potentially distracting nature of studying multiple identities at once, as well as the possibility for individuals without stigmatized identities to claim that they are also diverse in some way. Though these concerns are worth consideration, we believe it is important to pursue research on singular identities only as a building block to a larger end goal: Studying and understanding the realities of identity through intersectional research. The following commentary will outline our reasons for why studying multiple intersecting identities is vital to achieving a more complete view of diversity at work.

Ruggs et al. (2013) have argued compellingly that industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologists have missed opportunities to understand the experiences of marginalized groups in the workplace, particularly in generating research that will be relevant in the formation of social policies. We fully agree with Ruggs et al.'s assessment of the literature and highlight three important extensions that should be considered when conducting research with marginalized groups: the social construction of identities, the intersection of multiple identities, and the experience of exclusion.

Ruggs et al. (2013) have provided an indispensable wake-up call to the organizational sciences as they argue that the field's previous research on employee discrimination experiences has failed to capture the full spectrum of discriminatory behaviors in the workplace. They posit that industrial and organizational psychologists have “gone fishing” in the field of discrimination research, a reference to our scholarly ignorance of the discrimination experienced by seven groups of marginalized employees (i.e., non-Black racial minorities, LGBT individuals, older workers, disabled individuals, overweight employees, religious minorities, and workers at risk of marital status discrimination). In doing so, Ruggs et al. have taken what we believe is a critical first step in advancing the field by assembling a discussion of (arguably) all discrimination experiences into a consolidated treatise on discrimination research.

In the focal article, Ruggs et al. (2013) observed that there is a dearth of racial discrimination research beyond the traditional White–Black or White–nonWhite comparisons in the industrial–organizational (I–O) literature and urged researchers to treat each minority race separately because individuals may have unique experiences with discrimination based on different racial stereotypes associated with their race/ethnicity. I agree with the above assessments. Moreover, I argue that the overlook of negative consequences of positive stereotypes of some marginalized groups, such as Asian Americans, is another “missed opportunity” that has not been addressed in the focal article. Specifically, the traditional paradigm, which tends to exclusively focus on how negative stereotypes of a marginalized group (e.g., Blacks, individuals with disabilities) lead to workplace discriminations against them, may be too narrowly focused. In this commentary, I use Asian Americans as an example to illustrate how seemingly positive stereotypes, the model minority thesis, may also lead to workplace discrimination of Asian Americans, an often overlooked minority group in the discrimination literature.

In their article, Ruggs, Law, Cox, Roehling, Wiener, Hebl, and Barron (2013) address a number of underresearched groups that are subject to discrimination. We applaud the authors for calling attention to the neglected groups in the study of discrimination. However, it is likely that researchers have neglected some of these groups for practical reasons as the discrimination against these groups is either less intense or less widespread. For example, religious discrimination has accounted for between 2% and 4% of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charges, whereas race and sex discrimination together have accounted for approximately 65% of discrimination charges (EEOC, 2012a).

We agree with Ruggs and colleagues (2013) that age discrimination has been studied less in industrial and organizational (I–O) psychology in comparison to gender and race. We can, in fact, recall a number of articles on either age discrimination or age diversity that state that very fact in their introductory paragraphs. Age was for many years relegated to demographic control variable status. However, there has been an increase in research attention in I–O to age discrimination and diversity issues in the last couple of decades, even if it doesn't happen to appear with much regularity in the specific selection of reputable journals highlighted in this focal piece.

We agree whole-heartedly with Ruggs et al. (2013) call to focus more research attention on the workplace experiences of marginalized employees. Indeed, the authors raised many valid points concerning the needed contributions of industrial and organizational (I–O) psychology to both research and public policy as it relates to marginalized groups. However, we believe that the authors also missed an opportunity to highlight the workplace discrimination experienced by those individuals who are marginalized by their darker skin tones. This form of discrimination is more commonly known as colorism. Subsequently, our commentary focuses on defining this form of discrimination that is not well known among I–O psychologists, explaining why our field should be concerned with studying colorism, and making recommendations regarding how our field can better study colorism, affect jurisprudence on the issue, and ameliorate colorism's effects in workplace settings.