Applicant Screening and Performance-Related Outcomes

Huang, Fali; Cappelli, Peter

doi:10.1257/aer.100.2.214

Cited by 28 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…It is then probably a good idea to search for employees who care about others. Indeed, Huang and Cappelli (2010) find some evidence that firms that screen applicants for factors that predict "work ethic" economize on monitoring. Future work in behavioral economics may provide further insights on how important the employees' social preferences are for the success of an organization.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signaling Cooperation

Heinz

Schumacher

2015

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may Non-Technical SummaryAn increasing share of productive activities take place in teams. Working in teams allows complementary knowledge and skills to be combined, which can result in outcomes a single person would not achieve. However, since individual contributions to the team output are typically not verifiable, effective teamwork may be impeded by free riders. Free-riding also reduces the effectiveness of team incentives. Thus, if employees' cooperation in teams is important for an organization, it may want hire individuals who are not free riders, but instead are willing to contribute to a common good.What can an organization do in order to find such employees? In job interviews and assessment centers, all applicants can cheaply pretend to be team players. Nevertheless, an applicant's vita may provide substance to such claims. For example, if an applicant voluntarily engages in activities that are primarily done to help needy individuals, this could reveal that she is not only interested in her own benefit, but also cares about the well-being of others. This characteristic may make her more likely to contribute to future teamwork, even if the goal of the teamwork project is unrelated to the cause of the volunteering activity. Thus, social engagement may credibly signal an applicant's willingness to cooperate in teams to potential employers. This is the hypothesis that we test in this paper.We conduct two experiments to detect the signaling value of social engagement and other activities, such as volunteering in students or sports associations. In the first experiment (Study 1), we collect student subjects' current résumés and measure their behavior in a linear public goods game (PGG). In the second experiment (Study 2), we ask human resource managers from different firms and industries to predict the behavior of Study 1 subjects in the PGG, based on their résumés. To identify the impact of extracurricular activities on beliefs, we randomly vary the résumés content. To elicit beliefs in an incentive-compatible manner, the managers' payoff increases in the precision of their predictions. The advantage of this experimental design is that it closely links subjects' behavior and others' beliefs about behavior.Around 20 percent of our 347 subjects in Study 1 present some sort of social engagement on their résumés. It is one of the most commonly mentioned types of extracurricular activities. In order to get an objectiv...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signaling Cooperation

Heinz

Schumacher

2015

SSRN Journal

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“…when their compensation is tied to the output of the entire team and hence their compensation depends on their coworkers' efforts. 4 Huang and Cappelli (2010) find that employers are more likely to rely on the screening of job applicants in order to infer their work ethic when they are recruiting to fill job vacancies that require team work. 5 Employers can also elicit effort by increasing the costs to workers of getting fired if caught shirking by offering higher wages or other non-wage benefits (Shapiro and Stiglitz, 1984).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Huang and Cappelli () find that employers are more likely to rely on the screening of job applicants in order to infer their work ethic when they are recruiting to fill job vacancies that require team work.…”

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confidence: 99%

Employers' Efforts to Deter Shirking in Teams: Evidence from Job Vacancies

Brenčič

2014

Labour

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Employers can use profit sharing to elicit effort in teams as long as shirking is sufficiently costly. Analysis of descriptions of job vacancies from the online job board monster.com reveals that the threat of shirking does not deter employers from offering profit sharing to reward workers in teams. However, when team work is prevalent, employers are more likely to advertise a work environment where shirking is easier to detect and penalize. We do not find evidence of similar employers' efforts to deter shirking in teams if jobs entail: frequent interactions with a supervisor, volunteering, or work for a non-profit organization.

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“…). Usually, a careful selection of employees is viewed as a fundamental part of human resource management in order to improve the quality of matches (Huang and Capelli ; Ichniowski et al . ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Pay and Applicant Screening

Jirjahn

Mohrenweiser

2018

Brit J Industrial Rel

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Using German establishment data, we show that the relationship between intensity of individual-based performance pay and intensity of applicant screening depends on the nature of production. In establishments with increased multitasking, performance pay is positively associated with applicant screening. By contrast, in establishments without increased multitasking, performance pay is negatively associated with applicant screening. We do not find a similar pattern of results for group-based performance pay or profit-sharing. Our findings fit the hypothesis that individual-based performance pay induces a positive self-sorting of employees if jobs are less multifaceted. In this case, employers with a high intensity of performance pay do not need intensive applicant screening to ensure a high quality of matches between workers and jobs. However, if jobs are more multifaceted, individual-based performance pay can entail problems of adverse self-sorting. In order to mitigate or overcome these problems, employers making intensive use of performance pay also screen applicants more intensively.

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Applicant Screening and Performance-Related Outcomes

Cited by 28 publications

References 11 publications

Signaling Cooperation

Signaling Cooperation

Employers' Efforts to Deter Shirking in Teams: Evidence from Job Vacancies

Performance Pay and Applicant Screening

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