Four pillars of job applicant screening in China

Vladimir Hlasny

Working Papers from University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics

Abstract: Chinese employers practice extensive personal screening of job applicants. This study identifies four manifestations of this practice by motive – statistical, customer taste-based, employer taste-based, and regulatory – and evaluates their prevalence, economic determinants and implications for firms’ performance using simultaneous-equations linear and Poisson models. Categorization of a regulatory motive for applicant sorting in China is one contribution of this study. Statistical screening is found to be related positively to employers’ capital intensity, labor-market power and private ownership, and negatively to the supply of skills in provincial labor markets, as may be expected. Customer-taste screening is more prevalent in service and sales industries, as expected, and interestingly in wealthy first-tier cities. Employer-taste screening appears more prevalent at privately-owned firms, and surprisingly in skill-intensive industries and in first-tier cities, potentially reflecting difficulty at distinguishing it from customer-taste screening. Regulatory screening is related positively to firms’ market power, capital intensity and state ownership, as expected. Statistical and customer-taste screening is associated with higher firm profitability, particularly in skill-intensive industries and in service and sales industries, respectively, while employer-taste and regulatory screening is associated with lower profitability, as expected. These results jointly validate our identification of the four pillars of applicant screening.

Keywords: Recruitment; Job applicant screening; Profiling; Statistical & taste-based discrimination; Hukou; China; Poisson regression; Simultaneous equations model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 J24 J7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2014-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-tra
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ant:wpaper:2014029

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