Employers' social contacts and their hiring behavior in a factorial survey

Valentina Di Stasio; Klarita Gërxhani

doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.12.015

Employers' social contacts and their hiring behavior in a factorial survey

Valentina Di Stasio^*, Klarita Gërxhani

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

We investigate whether referrals from employers' business and professional contacts matter in the hiring process. Additionally, we examine whether the effect of referrals varies depending on: (1) the signaling role of education during the hiring process, and (2) applicants' level of education. Based on a combination of a factorial survey and an experimental design with a sample of English employers, we measure the effect of referrals on employers' hiring assessments. We find only weak evidence that referred applicants are considered more trainable than otherwise identical applicants that do not have a tie with the employer. More detailed analyses show that referrals do matter for employers who consider education a noisy signal, in line with the argument that informal recruitment can represent a strategy for employers to compensate for poor signaling. Referrals are especially beneficial for highly educated applicants, probably because employers need some guarantee against possible wage or turnover costs.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	93-107
Number of pages	15
Journal	Social Science Research
Volume	51
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.12.015
Publication status	Published - 1 May 2015
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research is supported by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Grant #452-07-002 . Findings discussed in this article have been presented at the conference organized by the European Consortium for Sociological Research in September 2012 at Stockholm University (Stockholm, Sweden). The authors are grateful to Adam Booij, Thijs Bol, Roberto Fernandez, Daniela Grunow, Herman van de Werfhorst, Olav Velthuis and three anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments on an earlier draft of the article.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Inc.

Funding

This research is supported by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Grant #452-07-002 . Findings discussed in this article have been presented at the conference organized by the European Consortium for Sociological Research in September 2012 at Stockholm University (Stockholm, Sweden). The authors are grateful to Adam Booij, Thijs Bol, Roberto Fernandez, Daniela Grunow, Herman van de Werfhorst, Olav Velthuis and three anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments on an earlier draft of the article.

Keywords

Education
Employers
Factorial survey
Hiring
Referrals

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.12.015

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Cite this

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abstract = "We investigate whether referrals from employers' business and professional contacts matter in the hiring process. Additionally, we examine whether the effect of referrals varies depending on: (1) the signaling role of education during the hiring process, and (2) applicants' level of education. Based on a combination of a factorial survey and an experimental design with a sample of English employers, we measure the effect of referrals on employers' hiring assessments. We find only weak evidence that referred applicants are considered more trainable than otherwise identical applicants that do not have a tie with the employer. More detailed analyses show that referrals do matter for employers who consider education a noisy signal, in line with the argument that informal recruitment can represent a strategy for employers to compensate for poor signaling. Referrals are especially beneficial for highly educated applicants, probably because employers need some guarantee against possible wage or turnover costs.",

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Employers' social contacts and their hiring behavior in a factorial survey

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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