Candidate Pre-Screening and Filtering Services

In Simple Words

Imagine a bouncer standing outside a venue who checks guest tickets before letting anyone enter the building. Instead of the host personally reading hundreds of RSVPs, the bouncer pre-checks qualifications and restricts entry so the host only meets a small handpicked group of qualified guests.

Research question

Employers opening job positions often incur high recruitment costs filtering out unsuited candidates from large applicant pools, especially in slack labor markets.

Participants

N = 7,438 unique small and medium-sized establishments across 129 local public employment agencies in France.

Study Design

Stratified Randomized Controlled Trial with a 3-month intensive prospection campaign and a sanctuary control group.

Results

Treatment increased permanent vacancy creation by 24% (0.047 vacancies per firm, p < 0.01) and pre-screening service usage by 58% (3.4 percentage point increase, p < 0.01), while reducing organic jobseeker applications received directly by firms by 39% (2.67 fewer applications, p < 0.01).

Takeaway

Delegate candidate initial verification and pre-selection screening to intermediary agency caseworkers to restrict applicant volume and lower private firm evaluation effort.

Read alongside the research

Plain-English glossary

Original explanations, informed by the references below. Examples are illustrations, not data from the studies above. The research text stays unchanged.

Percentage points

The difference between two percentages.

ExampleA rise from 40% to 50% is 10 percentage points. Relative to the starting value, that is a 25% increase.

Office for National Statistics · Percentages ↗Read more about percentage points →

Randomized controlled trial

A study that uses chance, like drawing lots, to decide who receives each option being compared. Researchers compare the groups’ outcomes to estimate the effect of those options.

ExampleA lottery assigns volunteers to a training programme or a comparison group. Researchers then compare their outcomes.

GET-IT glossary · Randomized study ↗Read more about randomized controlled trial →

Related findings

• Firm-Directed Active Labor Market Policy →Labour & employment

  Think of open job positions like retail store shelves. When the fee to put a new product on the shelf drops, the store owner adds more items to sell.

• Low-Productivity Cost Offsets →Labour & employment

  If it costs $1,000 in advertising and interviewing to hire a worker for a job that only generates $1,200 in value, a business owner will not take the risk. If an outside agency handles all the hiring effort for free, the upfront cost drops to zero, making it profitable to create the low-margin job.

• Private Vacancy Access Control →Labour & employment

  Think of a nightclub guest list kept privately at the door rather than printed on a flyer distributed across the entire city. Keeping the list private ensures only pre-screened guests can enter, preventing an overwhelming crowd from filling the entrance.

• Proactive Firm Prospection Campaign →Labour & employment

  Think of a store manager who usually waits behind the counter for customers to walk in. Switching to a proactive approach means stepping outside, visiting nearby shop owners, asking about their upcoming projects, and offering custom inventory help before they even ask for it.