Description | Adina Sterling, PhD Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, Stanford Graduate School of Business Taking the Longer Route: Tryouts and the Search Behavior of Structurally Disadvantaged Job–Seekers For college-educated workers, a common but understudied way individuals attempt to find employment is an internship or tryout—the period of time individuals spend in an organization before longer-term hiring decisions are made—yet few investigations of tryouts and their effects on job search behavior exist. In this article I use a highly detailed data set on nearly 100,000 individuals to examine how, relative to direct-hire methods, tryouts impact application behavior. Despite commonly held wisdom that those with advantages pursue these opportunities more, I argue that given an interest in working for an employer, structurally–disadvantaged job-seekers are more likely to seek out employment through tryouts versus direct-hire methods relative to structurally–advantaged workers. Analyses indicate support for the hypotheses. Given interest in working for an employer, those that lack a social network tie (positional disadvantage), and women and some racial and ethnic minorities (status-based disadvantage), all else equal, are more apt to apply to tryouts versus direct-hire methods compared to those with structural advantage. The article closes with a discussion of pre-hire employment and its influence on theories of labor markets, organizations, and gender and racial inequality. This lecture is made possible in part by a generous Endowment by the family of Allen. L. Edwards and by the Department of Management & Organization, Foster School of Business. |
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