When to Apply?

Katherine  Coffman; Manuela  Collis; Leena  Kulkarni

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

When to Apply?

by Katherine Coffman, Manuela Collis and Leena Kulkarni

Abstract

Labor market outcomes depend, in part, upon an individual’s willingness to put herself forward for different career opportunities. In this paper, we use both laboratory and field experiments to better understand decisions around willingness to apply for higher return, more challenging work, with a focus on gender differences. We find that, in male-typed domains, women are less likely to view themselves as well-qualified for a given opening, both because of differences in forecasts about own ability, but also, and importantly, because of differences in how high men and women believe “the bar” is. We show that these beliefs matter for application decisions. Finally, using a simple field experiment, we provide evidence that a soft-touch intervention, in which required qualifications are stated more precisely and objectively, helps to close the gender gap in willingness to apply, increasing both the average talent and the diversity of the applicant pool.

Keywords: beliefs; Gender; Information; Performance; Labor; Perception; Decision Making;

Language: English

Format: Print

51 pages

Read Now

Citation:

Coffman, Katherine, Manuela Collis, and Leena Kulkarni. "When to Apply?" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-062, August 2019. (Revised February 2020.)

This teaching plan serves as a supplement to the cases “Chief: Role for Carolyn Childers,” “Chief: Role for Lindsay Kaplan,” and “Scaling at Chief.”

Multiple-choice exams play a critical role in university admissions across the world. A key question is whether imposing penalties for wrong answers on these exams deters guessing from women more than men, disadvantaging female test-takers. We consider data from a large-scale, high-stakes policy change that removed penalties for wrong answers on the national college entry exam in Chile. The policy change reduced a large gender gap in questions skipped. It also narrowed gender gaps in performance, primarily among high-performing test-takers. Importantly, the gains are largely concentrated in domains characterized by historical female underrepresentation, including math, social science, and chemistry.

Faculty & Research

When to Apply?

Abstract

Citation:

About the Author

More from the Author