How do job seekers apply for jobs and can we help them do better?

Recently, there has been a growing interest in policy initiatives that attempt to combat unemployment by influencing the types of jobs job seekers apply to. A major challenge for the design of such policies is that existing empirical evidence on the job application process is very limited: Existing studies of job search are typically based either on administrative data that do not include job applications at all, or on data from online job platforms with limited coverage.

In this project we will leverage a novel data source on job applications made by the universe of UI recipients in Denmark, which we will link to administrative data on the universe of firms, workers and employment relationship, and to data on posted vacancies.

About the project

In this project we will leverage a novel data source on job applications made by the universe of UI recipients in Denmark, which we will link to administrative data on the universe of firms, workers and employment relationship, and to data on posted vacancies.

To inform policy, we will use these unique data to

i) test existing theories on how job seekers are applying for jobs and

ii) to examine whether job search outcomes could be improved by getting some job seekers direct their applications differently.

Sub projects

Project part 1 – Data construction and the Joblog data

At the center of this project is the so-called “Joblog” data which contains job applications data for all Danish UI recipients. The basis for these data is that since 2015, Danish UI recipients have been required to document that they are actively searching for jobs by registering applications with the Danish employment agencies. In this research project, we will link job application data from Joblog with administrative data on individuals and firms.

We will construct a very detailed set of characteristics of both firms, workers and the jobs they apply for, in part through the use of ML methods.

Project part 2 – Measuring the probability that a job application is successful

Existing theory on job applications emphasize job seekers’ trade-off between applying for an attractive job and applying for a job that they are very likely to get. The first step in testing existing theory is therefore to construct measures of the likelihood that a given job application is successful. In other words we ask: when a job seeker with certain characteristics applies to a job with certain other characteristics, what is the probability that the job seekers successfully gets that job?

Project part 3 – Understanding where job seekers choose to apply

The next part of the project aims directly to understand how job seekers are making decisions about which jobs to seek out and apply for. The starting point of this analysis is to test the two main predictions about job seeker behavior from the directed search literature: First, that job seekers should be trading off the probability of actually getting the job against the job’s wage and other characteristics. Second, that it should be optimal to send a “portfolio” of applications that target both
some relatively easy-to-get and some hard-to-get jobs.

Project part 4 – Understanding which applicants firms hire

Parts 2 and 3 deal with current application behavior and job success probabilities. To understand if and how outcomes can be improved by changing how job seekers apply, however, it is necessary to be able to compute counterfactuals about who would be hired if application behavior was changed in different ways. To be able to compute such counterfactual hiring outcomes, the next part of the research project involves estimating an econometric model of firm hiring. In other words we ask: when faced with a given pool of job applicants, who does the firm hire?

Researchers

Name	Title	Job responsibilities
Nikolaj Arpe Harmon	Associate Professor	Labor Markets; Jobs; Politicians; Public sector employees; Program evaluation

Department of Economics