Work-seekers’ job search decisions and firms’ hiring decisions use potentially noisy information about work-seekers’ skills. The study shows that assessing work-seekers’ skills in multiple domains, giving work-seekers the assessment results, and helping them to credibly share the results with firms increases work-seekers’ employment and earnings. It also alters their beliefs and search behaviour. Giving information only to work-seekers has similar effects on beliefs and search, but substantially smaller effects on employment and earnings. Giving information only to firms increases callbacks and interview invitations. These patterns are consistent with both firms and work-seekers facing information frictions that distort search and hiring.

Citation: Kate Orkin & Eliana Carranza & Robert Garlick & Neil Rankin, 2020. “Job Search and Hiring with Two-sided Limited Information about Workseekers’ Skills,” CSAE Working Paper Series 2020-10, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.