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Frequent job changes can signal poor work attitude and reduce employability

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Cohn, A 
Marechal, MA 
Schneider, Frederic-Guillaume  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2234-3437
Weber, RA 

Abstract

We study whether employment history provides information about a worker’s “work attitude,” i.e., the tendency to act cooperatively and reliably in the workplace. We conjecture that, holding all else equal, frequent job changes can indicate poor work attitude and that this information is transmitted through employment histories. We find support for this hypothesis across three studies that employ complementary lab, field, and survey experiments, as well as in labor market panel data. First, a tightly controlled laboratory labor market experiment demonstrates that prior employment information allows employers to screen for reliable and cooperative workers and that these workers obtain better employment outcomes. Second, we conduct a field experiment that varies the frequency of job changes in applicants’ resumes and find that those with fewer job changes receive substantially more callbacks from prospective employers. Third, a survey experiment with Human Resources professionals confirms that the resume manipulations in the field study create different perceptions of work attitude and that these largely account for the callback differences. Finally, we find evidence consistent with our hypothesized relationships in empirical labor market data. Our work highlights the potential importance of job history as a signal of work attitude in labor markets, and points to a potential cost of frequent job changes.

Description

Keywords

38 Economics, 3801 Applied Economics, Clinical Research, 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

Journal Title

Journal of the European Economic Association

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1542-4766
1542-4774

Volume Title

19

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Financial support from the Research Funds of the University of Zurich is gratefully acknowledged.