Niha Singh is currently a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Columbia University, and will join the economics department at University of Notre Dame starting in Fall 2023.

Abstract 

Traditional recruitment networks restrict the pool of workers available to firms and may limit hiring. Job portals can ease these frictions, but firms unaccustomed to recruiting online may be hesitant to hire unfamiliar candidates. We show that firms are significantly more likely to fill a vacancy—across all recruitment methods—when they receive interventions allowing them to attract skilled applicants and screen them on a portal. These interventions jointly induce firms to engage with unfamiliar applicants and increase portal-based hiring. Portal-based hires are retained beyond the standard assessment period, suggesting these firms successfully recruited suitable matches outside their networks.