Advice and Cognition: What Improves Job Finding?

Abstract

In this paper we present the results of a randomised multi-treatment intervention offering jobseekers access to innovative online tools aimed to improve the effectiveness of their job search. In one treatment arm, jobseekers have access to a purposely designed online job search platform that recommends vacancies by proximity with the jobseeker's skill profile (Jobs-for-You, J4U). The second treatment consists of online cognitive training sessions that help maintain crucial skills during unemployment (Cognition, COG). The intervention also includes a treatment arm with both the online platform and the cognitive training (J4U & COG) and, of course, a control group. We implemented the intervention in the Swiss cantons of Neuchatel and Vaud in 2021 and 2022. Results show that participants in both the J4U and COG group search jobs closer to their skill profiles than the control group, but only if they were mismatched in their previous jobs. These participants also find jobs more rapidly than the control group. Somewhat surprisingly, we find no difference in outcomes between the group receiving the combined treatment J4U & COG and the controls, possibly because of a form of task congestion. Joint paper with Hélène Benghalem, Michele Pellizzari, Matthias Kliegel, Mauro Cherubini, Mirjam Bächli, and Sascha Zuber.