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Does socio-emotional skills signaling matter in the labor market? A gender and skills correspondence study

Last registered on February 14, 2018

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Does socio-emotional skills signaling matter in the labor market? A gender and skills correspondence study
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002326
Initial registration date
July 17, 2017

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
July 18, 2017, 5:12 PM EDT

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

Last updated
February 14, 2018, 10:33 AM EST

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
World Bank

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Bologna
PI Affiliation
Middle East Technical University
PI Affiliation
Brown University
PI Affiliation
World Bank

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2017-04-03
End date
2018-06-30
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The study aims at capturing how employers value job seeker's signaling of socio-emotional skills and the effectiveness of these signals for male and female candidates. This is done using a a field experiment (correspondence or audit study), consisting of applying to real vacancy postings in 2 large cities in Turkey in five sectors on a large online jobs platform with fictitious resumes of comparable female and male candidates. We randomly assign the signaling of socio-emotional skills to candidates. The study attempts to answer the following questions: (a) Do employers discriminate job applicants based on gender? (b) Do employers respond to a signal of socio-emotional skills on a resume , and (c) Does the effectiveness of the signal of socio-emotional skills in terms of the call-back rate for an interview or job differ for men and women?
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hut, Stefan et al. 2018. "Does socio-emotional skills signaling matter in the labor market? A gender and skills correspondence study." AEA RCT Registry. February 14. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2326-3.0
Former Citation
Hut, Stefan et al. 2018. "Does socio-emotional skills signaling matter in the labor market? A gender and skills correspondence study." AEA RCT Registry. February 14. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2326/history/25814
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention consist of a field experiment (correspondence or audit study), where we apply to real vacancy postings in 2 large cities in Turkey in five sectors on a large online jobs platform. The application consists of fictitious resumes of comparable female and male candidates, which have randomly been assigned whether in their CVs they signal socio-emotional skills or not. Jobs are collecting on a weekly basis and applied to the following week.
Intervention Start Date
2017-07-17
Intervention End Date
2018-03-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We expect to observe three main outcomes related to the CV: CV receipt, CV opened, CV viewed, and candidate callback, being the callback the main outcome to be observed as a sign of the effectiveness or not of the intervention.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The audit study will involve creation of fictitious candidate profiles on the job search platform, which are similar in all dimensions (education, experience, language skills, computer skills, age, etc.) but differ in gender and in whether socio-emotional skills signaling (e.g description of the skill or association with an activity done in a previous job) are included in the CVs. All characteristics will be randomly assigned from a database already created, education and job experience will be randomized at the sector level. For each application 4 CVs will be submitted, a control and treatment for each sex.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Randomization is done at the individual characteristic level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
The intervention is not clustered
Sample size: planned number of observations
The team expects to apply to about 5,200 vacancies
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Each treatment arm (control and treatment) will include 2 CVs per vacancy applied, so about 10,400 CVs per treatment arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
We expect to be able to detect a one percentage point difference between treatment and control, with an alpha of 0.05 and power of 0.9
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Applied Research Ethics Center, Middle East Technical University
IRB Approval Date
2015-05-13
IRB Approval Number
28620816
IRB Name
Comitato di Bioetica, ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – UNIVERSITA’ DI BOLOGNA
IRB Approval Date
2015-07-03
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials