Research
Working Paper
Abstract: We investigate how candidates’ willingness to apply responds to (potential) discrimination and rejection using a simulated labor market. Past work has shown that "blinding" job applications reduces discrimination and increases the rate at which women are hired. Our study asks, how do blinding interventions impact the supply of candidates? Participants in our large online experiment are assigned to the role of either a recruiter or a candidate for a technical coding task. Candidates provide their willingness to apply for the opportunity with a non-blind resume that provides a coarse signal of their skills alongside gender and age, or a blind resume that hides the demographic information. We find that blinding applications increases the rate at which counter-stereotypical candidates apply, revealing an important channel through which blinding interventions can broaden and diversify the pool of talent. Our study goes beyond initial applications to explore the downstream effects of blinding in markets where candidates receive feedback. We ask whether rejections resulting from a blind process have a different impact than non-blind rejections. The effect could go either way: potential discrimination having a particularly discouraging effect on future application behavior, or a blind rejection instead being a stronger signal of quality and therefore inducing greater deterrence. We find support for the latter channel. Blind rejections have a larger impact on future applications than non-blind rejections, particularly for women. As a result, while blinding initially reduces age and gender gaps in willingness to apply, the supply-side benefits of blinding are more muted after a rejection. This causal evidence on the net effects of blinding advances our understanding of a practice that is gaining popularity in the field.