Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/111527 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9071
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
How do employers attract the right workers? How important are posted wages vs. other job characteristics? Using data from the leading job board CareerBuilder.com, we show that most vacancies do not post wages, and, for those that do, job titles explain more than 90% of the wage variance. Job titles also explain more than 80% of the across-vacancies variance in the education and experience of applicants. Finally, failing to control for job titles leads to a spurious negative elasticity of labor supply. Thus, our results uncover the previously undocumented power of words in the job matching process.
Subjects: 
online job search
wages
vacancies
wage variance
occupations
skills
JEL: 
J31
J63
J64
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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