The Value of College Athletics in the Labor Market: Results from a Resume Audit Field Experiment

Abstract

Employers may favor applicants who played college sports if athletics participation contributes to leadership, conscientiousness, discipline, and other traits that are desirable for labor-market productivity. We conduct a resume audit to estimate the causal effect of listing collegiate athletics on employer callbacks and test for subgroup effects by ethnicity, gender, and sport type. We applied to more than 450 jobs on a large, well-known job board. For each job listing, we submitted two fictitious resumes, one of which was randomly assigned to include collegiate varsity athletics. Overall, listing a college sport does not produce a statistically significant change in the likelihood of receiving a callback or interview request. We find no statistically significant differences within ethnicities or genders.

Mens Sana in Corpore Sano! The Hiring Premium for Physical Versus Mental Exercise in Different Occupations

“…This study complemented two earlier audit studies on the effects of physical exercise on employment chances. While our insignificant average point estimate of 1.0 pp is higher than the insignificant estimate of Paul et al (2023) (-1.5 pp), it is below the significant estimate of Rooth (2011) (+1.9 pp). Moreover, it is also below the estimated effect of graduating with honors or engaging in the board of a student organization (+1.6 pp for each activity), as found in a similar Flemish experiment (Baert and Verhaest, 2021).…”

“…However, the adopted exclusion restrictions in some of these studies may be open to debate. As an alternative, Rooth (2011) and Paul et al (2023) have therefore relied on experiments in which fictitious resumes were sent to real vacancies. Also their results are mixed as the former study found a small but meaningful effect of sport participation among Swedish college graduates while the latter did not detect any effect for US graduates.…”

“…Given this hitherto limited and inconclusive evidence on the causal effect of sport participation on labour market outcomes, we run another correspondence experiment with Belgian labour market entrants. Different from Rooth (2011) and Paul et al (2023), we test whether and how the returns of physical exercise activities differ from those of mental exercise activities (e.g. chess or mindfulness).…”