The Elusive Returns to AI Skills: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Teo Firpo, Lukas Niemann and Anastasia Danilov
Additional contact information
Teo Firpo: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Lukas Niemann: Tanso Technologies
Anastasia Danilov: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

No 552, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: As firms increasingly adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, how they adjust hiring practices for skilled workers remains unclear. This paper investigates whether AI-related skills are rewarded in talent recruitment by conducting a large-scale correspondence study in the United Kingdom. We submit 1,185 résumés to vacancies across a range of occupations, randomly assigning the presence or absence of advanced AI-related qualifications. These AI qualifications are added to résumés as voluntary signals and not explicitly requested in the job postings. We find no statistically significant effect of listing AI qualifications in résumés on interview callback rates. However, a heterogeneity analysis reveals some positive and significant effects for positions in Engineering and Marketing. These results are robust to controlling for the total number of skills listed in job ads, the degree of match between résumés and job descriptions, and the level of expertise required. In an exploratory analysis, we find stronger employer responses to AI-related skills in industries with lower exposure to AI technologies. These findings suggest that the labor market valuation of AI-related qualifications is context-dependent and shaped by sectoral innovation dynamics.

Keywords: return to skills; technological change; labor market; hiring; signaling; human capital; field experiment; ai-related skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I26 J23 J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11-17
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/ ... ussion_paper/552.pdf (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:rco:dpaper:552

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Viviana Lalli ().