College Major, Internship Experience, and Employment Opportunities: Estimates from a Résumé Audit

John Nunley (), Adam Pugh, Nicholas Romero and Richard Seals ()

No auwp2014-03, Auburn Economics Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, Auburn University

Abstract: We use experimental data from a résumé-audit study to estimate the impact of particular college majors and internship experience on employment opportunities. Our experimental design relies on the randomization of résumé characteristics to identify the causal effects of these attributes on job opportunities. Despite applying exclusively to business-related job openings, we find no evidence that business degrees improve employment prospects. Furthermore, we find no evidence linking particular degrees to interview-request rates. By contrast, internship experience increases the interview-request rate by about 14 percent. In addition, the “returns” to internship experience are larger for non-business majors than for business majors.

Keywords: College Major; Internship; Employment; Field Experiments; Correspondence Studies; Résumé Audit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J24 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-exp, nep-ger and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Related works:
Journal Article: College major, internship experience, and employment opportunities: Estimates from a résumé audit (2016)
Working Paper: College Major, Internship Experience, and Employment Opportunities: Estimates from a Résumé Audit (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:abn:wpaper:auwp2014-03

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