Career Information Intervention

Last registered on September 12, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Career Information Intervention
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015913
Initial registration date
April 28, 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
April 30, 2025, 1:29 PM EDT

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

Last updated
September 12, 2025, 3:53 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

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Primary Investigator

Name
Yana Gallen
Affiliation
University of Chicago
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Melanie Wasserman
PI Affiliation
University of California Los Angeles
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-04-30
End date
2026-04-30
Keywords
Gender
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We conduct a survey experiment to study how information on a job’s work/life balance affects students’ interest in career paths. In the survey, students are asked to read a description of the pros and cons of going into management consulting. We randomize students to receive a description either with or without information on work/life balance. We then elicit students' beliefs about two non-wage amenities related to work/life balance as well as their interest in working in management consulting and in certain types of firms.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gallen, Yana and Melanie Wasserman. 2025. "Career Information Intervention ." AEA RCT Registry. September 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15913-1.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We conduct a survey-based informational intervention among UCLA undergraduate students. We will recruit UCLA undergraduates potentially interested in career information about management consulting. In the survey, students are asked to read a description of the pros and cons of going into management consulting (an audio recording is also provided to make the message more salient/realistic). We sourced the description of management consulting from one of the actual messages that a student received in our original experiment.

We randomize students to receive one of two versions of the message.
Control: no work/life balance information
Treatment: identical to control but includes work/life balance information
Intervention Start Date
2025-04-30
Intervention End Date
2025-06-18

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
After students read/listen to the message, we elicit their beliefs about two non-wage amenities related to work/life balance as well as their career path interests:
1. Hours worked per week
2. Part-time work availability
3. Probability of attending a workshop on how to break into management consulting
4. Probability of choosing a Big 4 consulting job instead of a small, specialized consulting job
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
We will also check whether there is an effect on student’s filling out an application to attend the information session.

We will estimate the main effects by pre-existing interest/knowledge of the career path.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The survey is conducted online through Qualtrics. We randomize students to receive one of two versions of the message.
Control: no work/life balance information
Treatment: identical to control but includes work/life balance information
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is done by a computer (Qualtrics at the time the survey is opened).
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
434 students
Sample size: planned number of observations
434 students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
217 in each condition (treatment/control)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
With 80% power, we can detect a 3 hour change in beliefs about hours worked per week with 434 students, given a pilot mean in the control group of 52.3 hours. We can detect an 8 percentage point change in the percent chance of attending the information session, given the pilot mean in the control group of 48.4 percent.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UCLA Office of the Human Research Protection Program
IRB Approval Date
2025-04-11
IRB Approval Number
IRB-25-0757
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Prespecification of Analyses for Student Informational Intervention--2025

MD5: cd5bdf13fc318ebe4caa32f9a9138270

SHA1: 37c4141a87b12a0bc98db12a704144d5cba8bf0e

Uploaded At: April 28, 2025