Incentivized Resume Rating: Eliciting Employer Preferences without Deception
Judd B. Kessler, Corinne Low, Colin D. Sullivan
American Economic Review · 2019 · Volume 109 · Issue 11
Abstract
We introduce a new experimental paradigm to evaluate employer preferences, called incentivized resume rating (IRR). Employers evaluate resumes they know to be hypothetical in order to be matched with real job seekers, preserving incentives while avoiding the deception necessary in audit studies. We deploy IRR with employers recruiting college seniors from a prestigious school, randomizing human capital characteristics and demographics of hypothetical candidates. We measure both employer preferences for candidates and employer beliefs about the likelihood that candidates will accept job offers, avoiding a typical confound in audit studies. We discuss the costs, benefits, and future applications of this new methodology.
Keywords
Search, Learning, Information and Knowledge, Communication, Belief, Unawareness, Returns to Education, Labor Demand, Human Capital, Skills, Occupational Choice, Labor Productivity, Personnel Economics: Firm Employment Decisions, Promotions
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