Career Hub Uptake and Impact Assessment

Last registered on January 30, 2025
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Career Hub Uptake and Impact Assessment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015294
Initial registration date
January 29, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 30, 2025, 11:12 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Name
Tahmid Bin Mahmud
Affiliation
BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Dr. Munshi Sulaiman
PI Affiliation
BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-03-01
End date
2025-03-31
Keywords
Education, Labor, Other
Additional Keywords
career counselling, employability
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
BRAC’s Skills Development Programme (SDP) has launched Career Hub to help young people prepare for jobs by offering career counseling, resume building, mock interviews, and employment connections. The first step in this process is "Career Chat," where recent or soon-to-be graduates receive guidance on their career goals and ways to improve their employability.

Our research goal is to assess the uptake and impact of Career Hub on job seekers. We also aim to ascertain individual's willingness-to-pay for Career Hub's services - how much participants are willing to pay for career counselling services. A Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) of 1200 participants have been conducted with the objective to evaluate the uptake of Career Hub services and assess their effectiveness in increasing the employability of its participants. If the research findings are promising, the platform can be scaled up and promoted throughout Bangladesh, to the benefit of both graduates and potential employers.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Mahmud, Tahmid Bin and Dr. Munshi Sulaiman. 2025. "Career Hub Uptake and Impact Assessment." AEA RCT Registry. January 30. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15294-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our study participants were 1200 individuals who registered in Career Hub's website but did not avail any of its services afterwards. During the baseline phone survey we randomly assigned half of them to the treatment arm and the other half to the control arm. The intervention (which followed the baseline survey) was a low-touch follow-up nudge by Career Hub's staff - encouraging the participants to avail the services by informing them of its benefits. This nudge is part of the Career Hub's Program Staff's daily operation, so we would invariably end up assessing the effectiveness of their nudge compared to the control participants who receive no such nudges.
Intervention Start Date
2024-04-01
Intervention End Date
2024-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Uptake of Career Hub
2. Impact of Career Hub on employability
3. Individuals willingness-to-pay for career counselling services
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We conduct a randomized controlled trial on 1200 participants who have registered on Career Hub's website but have not availed any of its career counselling services. We completed a baseline phone on survey on them, where 1,034 respondents consented to be part of our study. From there, we randomly assigned 518 respondents to the treatment sample and the rest 516 to the control sample. The respondents in the treatment arm received periodic nudge from the Career Hub staffs, encouraging them to avail the career counselling services. The control arm received no such nudges. The entire sample was also inquired how much would they be willing to pay for the career counselling services.
The entire sample was then followed up six months later, through another phone survey. We aim to assess the uptake of Career Hub, between those respondents who received nudges and those who did not. We also want to determine the impact of Career Hub on individuals employability - among those who availed its services compared to those who did not.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization was embedded in the survey CTO form and participants were randomly assigned during the baseline survey.
Randomization Unit
Individual level randomization.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1200 Career Hub website registrees.
Sample size: planned number of observations
1200 Career Hub website registrees.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
600 individuals in treatment, 600 individuals in control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
The study has above 93% power to detect minimum effect size of 20%, considering standard deviation to be 1.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University
IRB Approval Date
2023-04-13
IRB Approval Number
IRB-22 February'23-004
Analysis Plan