Management Division, Columbia Business School, New York, NY, USA.
Behavioural Insights Team, London, UK.
Nat Hum Behav. 2023 Feb;7(2):211-218. doi: 10.1038/s41562-022-01485-6. Epub 2022 Dec 5.
Past research shows that decision-makers discriminate against applicants with career breaks. Career breaks are common due to caring responsibilities, especially for working mothers, thereby leaving job seekers with employment gaps on their résumés. In a preregistered audit field experiment in the United Kingdom (n = 9,022), we show that rewriting a résumé so that previously held jobs are listed with the number of years worked (instead of employment dates) increases callbacks from real employers compared to résumés without employment gaps by approximately 8%, and with employment gaps by 15%. A series of lab studies (an online pilot and two preregistered experiments; n = 2,650) shows that this effect holds for both female and male applicants-even when compared to applicants without employment gaps-as well as and for applicants with less and more total job experience. The effect is driven by making the applicant's job experience salient, not as a result of novelty or ease of reading.
过去的研究表明，决策者会歧视有职业中断的求职者。由于照顾责任，职业中断很常见，尤其是对于职业女性而言，这使得求职者的简历上出现了就业空白。在英国进行的一项预先注册的审计现场实验中（n=9022），我们表明，通过改写简历，将之前的工作按照工作年限（而不是就业日期）列出，与没有就业空白的简历相比，实际雇主的回复率大约增加了 8%，而与有就业空白的简历相比，则增加了 15%。一系列实验室研究（一项在线试点研究和两项预先注册的实验；n=2650）表明，这种效果既适用于女性和男性申请者——即使与没有就业空白的申请者相比——也适用于工作经验较少和较多的申请者。这种效果是通过突出申请人的工作经验来实现的，而不是因为新颖性或易于阅读。
