Competitiveness and EmployabilityJohanna Mollerstrom

20 January 2022

Johanna Mollerstrom (George Mason University), 17:15 - 18:45, presents her project in the Interdisciplinary Research Seminar of the GRK "Collective Decision-Making”.

This seminar will take place via Zoom. Please register (if you haven’t already) here if you want to attend the seminar. We invite everyone interested to attend!

Abstract

We investigate the impact on perceived and actual employability when job candidates signal different personal tastes for competitions. Using three experiments, with over 2000 participants in total, we show that candidates who are not willing to compete at all risk being perceived as less productive, while those who signal a willingness to compete with others may be perceived as less socially skilled. Displaying a willingness to self-compete, i.e. to challenge oneself to improve over time, does, however, increase the likelihood of being perceived as both productive and socially skilled. These findings hold for both female and male candidates.