Who Gets the Job and Why? an Explorative Study of Employers'recruitment Behavior

Abstract

In the literature of labor economics we find many examples of studies analyzing job seekers search behavior, but few examples of the corresponding analysis of the recruitment behavior of employers. This paper gives a picture of the recruitment behavior of Swedish employers. The analysis is based on about 800 telephone interviews with employers regarding the last person they had hired. This paper relates the lemon’s problem in Akerlof with the Spence signaling model, and then it proceeds to relate indices and signals to the hiring behavior of employers. Employers mainly recruit personnel in order to expand a certain activity of their firm. On an average the total recruitment process takes about a month. In first round employers mainly look for job seekers with good education and experience. During the job interview the employer search for persons with professional knowledge, personal engagement and social competence.