Impact of Job Search Method and Effort On Search Outcomes

Abstract

Research on the behavior of job seekers has been extensive in the economics discipline. In more recent years this research has been supplemented by insights and contributions from other fields including sociology and human resources management. Since Stiglers pioneering studies in the early 1960s (1961, 1962), the analysis of the economics of job search has been dominated by sequential stopping models" in which job seekers are assumed to sample wage offers sequentially one after another. The job seeker is viewed as deciding whether or not to accept an offer on the basis of the relationship of the wage offer to the individual's reservation wage (McCall, 1970; Mortensen, 1970; Gronau, 1971). Subsequent empirical literature has elaborated on this basic framework by exploring factors affecting search intensity and search outcomes. Among the factors explored have been a variety of financial and nonfinancial resources allocated to job search, the availability of various forms of unemployment in surance (UI) benefits, other forms of non-search related income, and so forth (Blau & Robins, 1986; Blau, 1991; Barron & Gilley, 1979; Barron & Mellow, 1979; Keeley & Robins, 1985). A second, but obviously related body of economics literature has examined job seeker decision making related to choice of job search methods and the impact of various job search methods on employ ment outcomes (Rees , 1966: Rees & Schulz, 1970; Stevens, 1977: Azevedo, 1974; Holzer, 1987: Blau, 1992).