Employer Knows Best: A Comparison of Hiring Practices on the Career Outcomes of Early-career Professionals

• In Event: 3253 - Gender, Race, and Organizational Careers

Abstract

We compare hiring methods of early career professionals and the association with subsequent post-entry career outcomes. Specifically, we examine five distinct hiring methods of nearly 600 individuals graduating in 2008 and 2009 from an elite, graduate program in the U.S. into their first job and mobility five to six years post-graduation. Preliminary analyses suggest that individuals who obtained their jobs from an employer-invitation to interview were more likely to subsequently receive a promotion within that firm as their first post-graduation career mobility event. In fact, the promotion likelihood for this hiring method is higher than the four other hiring methods, including those hired after actual employment at the firm via an internship and those utilizing a referral from the school community network. While this hiring method is positively associated with internal upward mobility, the likelihood for women hired by this method is significantly lower than men’s likelihood. To our knowledge, this is the first study that compares various hiring methods and their association to post-entry career processes by gender.

Authors

• Jennifer Merluzzi, George Washington University

• James B. Wade, George Washington University