Incentivized Resume Rating: Eliciting Employer Preferences without Deception

Judd B. Kessler; Corinne Low; Colin D. Sullivan

doi:10.1257/aer.20181714

American Economic Review Vol. 109 No. 11 2019

Incentivized Resume Rating: Eliciting Employer Preferences without Deception

Judd B. Kessler¹; Corinne Low¹; Colin D. Sullivan²

¹ Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 3733 Spruce Street, Vance Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (email: ) · ² Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Landau Economics Building, Stanford, CA 94305 (email: )

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.

DOI: 10.1257/aer.20181714
Volume: 109
Issue: 11
Pages: 3713-3744
Language: en
Sources: bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Incentivized Resume Rating: Eliciting Employer Preferences without Deception

Abstract

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