Jonas Radbruch, Humboldt University Berlin
Feedback, Confidence and Job Search Behavior
with Tsegay Tekleselassie, Marc Witte, Lukas Hensel and Ingo E. Isphording
We conduct a field experiment with job seekers in Addis Ababa to study how feedback about relative cognitive skills affects job search. After eliciting beliefs and willingness to pay (WTP) for feedback, we randomly inform job seekers about their true relative performance. Feedback improves belief accuracy and increases search effort on average, but effects are highly heterogeneous.
Search responses are concentrated among initially underconfident job seekers with positive WTP for feedback. In this group, feedback also increases employment and earnings, while overconfident job seekers and those with non-positive WTP show little response. We rationalize this pattern with a framework in which feedback affects behavior when it is both retained and perceived as decision-relevant.
Survey evidence supports this interpretation: the responsive group is uniquely likely to report instrumental reasons for seeking feedback. These results suggest that self-selection and belief-based targeting can make feedback interventions more effective.