Firms View Hiring Industry Switchers As Risky Business, According to New Study by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Professor
Chapel Hill, N.C. (PRWEB) February 10, 2015 -- Changing careers in the corporate world is hard work. The road block is uncertainty about whether an applicant can become a productive employee without previous experience in the firm’s industry, according to new research by Camelia M. Kuhnen of the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School and economics profess Paul Oyer of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
They find that companies are almost twice as likely to hire someone who already has worked in their industry versus someone who has not.
Kuhnen and Oyer studied the process firms use to hire MBA students by analyzing a unique dataset of MBA recruiting activity at a top U.S. business school. They share their results in “Exploration for Human Capital: Evidence from the MBA Labor Market,” a working paper issued in January 2015 for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where they are faculty research fellows. They combine insights from research about firms’ investment decisions as well as personnel economics to empirically analyze the process firms use to select employees.
“Uncertainty hinders hiring,” said Kuhnen. “Hiring people is an investment – one made with uncertainty about their future productivity. To minimize that uncertainty, firms prefer to hire job candidates who already have worked in their industry.”
The odds for applicants with industry experience to be selected are 1.71 times higher than for those without industry experience.
Uncertainty about industry fit has a more detrimental effect on hiring when firms:
• Face higher cost for firing and replacing employees
• Experience less competition from other firms in their industry for hiring talent
• Hire for a full-time position compared to an internship
• Are small and not well known
One way that firms can lower uncertainty about industry fit is to hire using probationary work arrangements as a way to learn more about the potential employee before making long-term hiring decisions. Consequently, employers value summer internships as a way to assess and learn about MBA candidates – their investment is low as would be the termination costs.
The researchers show that the rates for interns who don’t get a permanent job offer at the end of the summer are 19 percent higher for those without industry experience compared to their experienced counterparts – evidence that the firms use “probationary employment” to learn about the candidates’ industry fit.
Competition diminishes the effect of uncertainty, said Kuhnen. “Uncertainty matters less when more firms are hiring from the same pool in the same period of time – recruiters know that waiting for more information could mean losing the hire to another firm.”
“We are shedding light onto the matching process between firms and workers, where there has been limited empirical analysis conducted,” said Oyer. “Our findings show that considerations similar to those used by firms in making physical investments are also significant determinants of corporate hiring decisions.”
About the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School
Consistently ranked one of the world's best business schools, UNC Kenan-Flagler is known for its collaborative culture that stems from its core values: excellence, leadership, integrity, community and teamwork. Professors excel at both teaching and research, and demonstrate unparalleled dedication to students. Graduates are effective, principled leaders who have the technical and managerial skills to deliver results in the global business environment. UNC Kenan-Flagler offers a rich portfolio of programs and extraordinary, real-life learning experiences: Undergraduate Business (BSBA), full-time MBA, Executive MBA Programs (Evening, Weekend and global OneMBA®), online MBA@UNC, UNC-Tsinghua Dual-Degree EMBA, Master of Accounting, PhD, Executive Development, and UNC Business Essentials programs. It is home to the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.
Allison Adams, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu, +1 9199627235, [email protected]
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