Distance education has experienced tremendous growth over the past decades and more students are participating in some form of distance learning than have been the case prior. This growth can be seen throughout P-20 education, to include, graduate, professional and doctoral studies. However, at the doctoral level, scholars argue that the employment practices in higher education appear to favor candidates that earned their doctoral degrees in traditional programs instead of candidates that earned their degrees in online programs. The scope of this study focused on faculty and administrators in higher education that currently holds Graduate Faculty Rank: that is, faculty whose current appointment includes mentorship, teaching, and training, of graduate students in masters and doctoral level programs. Often, Graduate Faculty are also serving as hiring gatekeepers for their department and or college in which they are acting as hiring authorities for employment searches. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore if there is a correlation of socialization skills gained by online doctoral students compared to traditional doctoral students and the impact such relationship has on the hiring process for higher education positions. Twenty-seven graduate faculty within a public four-year higher education institution within the Northwest region of the United States participated in this study. The researcher utilized a 24-question survey that was developed by DePriest (2009) and later modified by Sinow-Mandelbaum (2014). The researcher added a single question to the survey regarding socialization. Data were examined by computing the Pearson r, MANOVA, chi-square test, and a logistic regression analysis. The results of this study suggest that the disapproval of students who earned their doctoral degree online for higher education employment correlates with the faculty perceptions on the lack of activities for the socialization of the professional role that students in online programs are offered. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]