A Job I Like or a Job I Can Get: Designing Job Recommender Systems Using Field Experiments

Guillaume Bied, Philippe Caillou, Bruno Cr\'epon, Christophe Gaillac, Elia P\'erennes and Mich\`ele Sebag

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Recommendation systems (RSs) are increasingly used to guide job seekers on online platforms, yet the algorithms currently deployed are typically optimized for predictive objectives such as clicks, applications, or hires, rather than job seekers' welfare. We develop a job-search model with an application stage in which the value of a vacancy depends on two dimensions: the utility it delivers to the worker and the probability that an application succeeds. The model implies that welfare-optimal RSs rank vacancies by an expected-surplus index combining both, and shows why rankings based solely on utility, hiring probabilities, or observed application behavior are generically suboptimal, an instance of the inversion problem between behavior and welfare. We test these predictions and quantify their practical importance through two randomized field experiments conducted with the French public employment service. The first experiment, comparing existing algorithms and their combinations, provides behavioral evidence that both dimensions shape application decisions. Guided by the model and these results, the second experiment extends the comparison to an RS designed to approximate the welfare-optimal ranking. The experiments generate exogenous variation in the vacancies shown to job seekers, allowing us to estimate the model, validate its behavioral predictions, and construct a welfare metric. Algorithms informed by the model-implied optimal ranking substantially outperform existing approaches and perform close to the welfare-optimal benchmark. Our results show that embedding predictive tools within a simple job-search framework and combining it with experimental evidence yields recommendation rules with substantial welfare gains in practice.

Date: 2026-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-upt
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.21699 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2603.21699

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().