IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lmu/muenar/84732.html

Skills, signals, and employability: An experimental investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Piopiunik, Marc
  • Schwerdt, Guido
  • Simon, Lisa
  • Woessmann, Ludger

Abstract

Because most skills of labor-market entrants are not directly observed by employers, individuals acquire skill signals. To study which signals are valued by employers, we randomize several skill signals on resumes of fictitious applicants among which we ask a large representative sample of German human-resource managers to choose. We find that signals in both studied domains - cognitive and social skills - have significant effects on being invited for a job interview. Consistent with their relevance, expectedness, and credibility, different signals are effective for apprenticeship applicants and college graduates. While GPAs and social skills are significant for both genders, females are particularly rewarded for IT and language skills. Older HR managers value school grades less and other signals more. HR managers in larger firms value college grades more.

Suggested Citation

  • Piopiunik, Marc & Schwerdt, Guido & Simon, Lisa & Woessmann, Ludger, 2020. "Skills, signals, and employability: An experimental investigation," Munich Reprints in Economics 84732, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lmu:muenar:84732
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lmu:muenar:84732. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.