Experimental Design
Weekly, job posting data will be scraped from the major job posting website in Germany (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) in the occupations of interest, and a list of target job postings will be created (omitting companies we have applied for previously, omitting temporary work from employment agencies, omitting postings where the application occurs on an external job board or portal). A team of research assistants will aid in generating pairs of ficitious, randomized, matched applications to e-mail to employers and securing additional job posting information (like what e-mail to send applications to).
Employer response will be carefully tracked via phone and email. Upon contact, employers will be promptly contacted, where applicants will let them know they have recently found work and are therefore no longer interested in the position. The outcome of interest is whether the employer responds positively—that is, whether they offer the applicant an interview, request additional information about qualifications, request the applicant contacts them back, etc.
A version of the experiment may be conducted where trackable links are sent in place of PDF attachments in emails. Whether or not this occurs will depend on the results of a pilot test (will enough employers click on such links, especially in the context of Germany people are extremely vigilant about data protection and privacy).