Job Search and Hiring with Two-Sided Limited Information about Workseekers’ Skills

We present field experimental evidence that limited information about workseekers’ skills distorts both firm and workseeker behavior. Assessing workseekers’ skills, giving workseekers their assessment results, and helping them to credibly share the results with firms increases workseekers’ employmen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policy File 2020
Main Authors: Carranza, Eliana, Garlick, Robert, Orkin, Kate, Rankin, Neil
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
Employment
Hiring
Job hunting
Labor market
Skills
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:We present field experimental evidence that limited information about workseekers’ skills distorts both firm and workseeker behavior. Assessing workseekers’ skills, giving workseekers their assessment results, and helping them to credibly share the results with firms increases workseekers’ employment and earnings. It also aligns their beliefs and search strategies more closely with their skills. Giving assessment results only to workseekers has similar effects on beliefs and search, but smaller effects on employment and earnings. Giving assessment results only to firms increases callbacks. These patterns are consistent with two-sided information frictions, a new finding that can inform design of information-provision mechanisms.