Abstract
We develop and evaluate experimentally a novel tool that redesigns the job search process by providing tailored advice at lowcost.We invited jobseekers to our computer facilities for twelve consecutive weekly sessions to search for real jobs on our web interface. For one-half, instead of relying on their own search criteria, we use readily available labour market data to display relevant alternative occupations and associated jobs. The data indicate that this broadens the set of jobs they consider and increases their job interviews especially for participants who otherwise search narrowly and have been unemployed for a few months.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1411-1447 |
| Number of pages | 37 |
| Journal | Review of Economic Studies |
| Volume | 86 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2019 |
Funding
Acknowledgments. This study was built on a research question proposed by Michèle Belot. We thank the Job Centres in Edinburgh for their extensive support for this study, and especially Cheryl Kingstree who provided invaluable help and resources. We thank the Applications Division at the University of Edinburgh and in particular Jonathan Mayo for his dedication in programming the job search interface and databases, and to Peter Pratt for his consultation. We thank Mark Hoban - U.K. Minister for Employment at the time of our study - as well as Tony Jolly at the UK Department for Work and Pensions Digital Services Division for granting us access to the vacancy data, and to Christopher Britton at Monster.com for liaising with us to provide technical access. We are grateful to Andrew Kelloe, Jonathan Horn, Robert Richards and Samantha Perussich for extensive research assistance and to Ivan Salter for managing the laboratory. We are thankful for the suggestions by many seminar audiences including at Field Days Rotterdam, ESA Miami, Brussels Workshop on Economic Design and Institutions, VU Amsterdam, Experimental Methods in Policy Conference Cancun, New York University Abu Dhabi, CPB, Newcastle Business School, Annual conference of the RES, IZA, University of St Andrews, Annual SaM conference Aix, ESPE Izmir, SED Warsaw, Behavioural Insights Team, NBER Summer Institute Boston, EEA Meeting Mannheim, European University Institute, Oxford, and the Aarhus Conference on Labour Market Models and their Applications. We thank Richard Blundell for his insightful discussion, and Fane Groes and Christian Holzner for their input. Kircher acknowledges the generous financial support from European Research Council Grant 60. The study also devoted substantial resources (£80,000/$120,000) to attracting participants, compensating participants, and for research assistants. The second methodology uses information on transferable skills across occupations from the U.S. based website O*net, which is an online “career exploration” tool sponsored by the U.S. department of Labour, Employment & Training Administration. For each occupation, they suggest up to ten related occupations that require similar skills. We retrieved the related occupations and presented the ones related to the preferred occupation as specified by the participant. This provides information on skill transferability only, not on job availability.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. | |
| U.S. department of Labour, Employment & Training Administration | |
| European Commission | 284119 |
| European Research Council | 60. |
Keywords
- Occupational breadth
- Online job search
- Search design
