Video resumes and discrimination toward individuals with disabilities

Last registered on October 04, 2021

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Video resumes and discrimination toward individuals with disabilities

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0008310

Initial registration date

September 30, 2021

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

October 04, 2021, 3:06 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Canada

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Marion Goussé

Affiliation

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Charles Bellemare

PI Affiliation

PI Name

Steeve Marchand

PI Affiliation

PI Name

Guy Lacroix

PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2016-05-01

End date

2019-04-30

Keywords

Labor

Additional Keywords

discrimination, disabilities, video resumes, job search

JEL code(s)

J71, J68

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

We sent 2021 fictitious applications to firms advertising job openings. In some applications we reveal that the applicant is disabled (wheel chair user) and in others we do not. In half the applications where a disability is revealed, it is revealed through a mention in the cover letter, in the other half, it is revealed through a link toward a video resume where we see the applicant sitting on a wheel chair. Among the applications where there is no disability, half of them include a link toward a video resume where the applicant sits on a regular chair and says the same speach as in the video resume with no disabilities. We compare callback rates between the different applications.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Bellemare, Charles et al. 2021. "Video resumes and discrimination toward individuals with disabilities." AEA RCT Registry. October 04. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8310-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2016-05-01

Intervention End Date

2019-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Difference in callback rates between video resumes with disabilities and video resumes without

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Our experiments countains two parts. In both of these, fictitious resumes were sent to employers advertising job openings for which (wheelchair) disability is deemed to have little bearing on productivity. In the first experiment, 1,477 traditional resumes were sent between May 2016 and April 2017, of which roughly half mentioned the use of a wheelchair in the cover letter. Secretary-receptionist, computer programmer and accounting clerk postings were targeted. In the second experiment, as many as 2,021 female resumes were sent to secretary-receptionist job postings between September 2018 and April 2019.Two different treatments were considered in this experiment. The first mimicked that of the first experiment. The second consisted in an invitation to potential employers to view apersonalized video using a hyperlink that appeared in the cover letter. The cover letter did not disclose any information about the disability. This could only be assessed by viewing the videos as half of them showed the applicant sitting in a wheelchair while the other half showed her sitting on a regular chair. In both experiments, wheelchair accessibility of a sizable subsample of firms was assessed by on-site visits

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

We do the randomization of the application in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

Video resumes were randomized

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

We first sent 1477 resumes in a first part of the experiment.
In the second part, we sent 2021 resumes

Sample size: planned number of observations

We first sent 1477 resumes in a first part of the experiment. In the second part, we sent 2021 resumes

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

In the second part of our experiment, we sent 2021 applications between September 2018 and August 2019. Of those,569 applications (311 and 258 with/without a disability) contained no video resume. The re-maining 1,452 applications (719 and 733 with/without a disability) included a video resume,half of which switched from a narrow to a wide frame after 51 seconds instead of 13.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB