In Simple Words
Think of trying to use an electrical power adapter bought at a major international chain store in a foreign country. Even if the store brand is famous globally, if the metal prongs do not match the local wall socket configuration, the outlet still will not accept the plug.
Applications with all foreign credentials
- Local foreign company experience
- 4.0% callback rate
- International company experience
- 6.8% callback rate
Observed company-name groups within resumes with all foreign education and experience. Interview callbacks, not job offers. No causal brand effect or statistical difference is established.
See source →Research question
Foreign work experience acquired at globally recognized multinational corporations yields virtually no reduction in the foreign experience callback penalty when applying for host-country positions compared to foreign experience at local foreign firms.
Participants
N = 12,910 resumes submitted to 3,225 job postings across 20 occupation categories in Toronto and Montreal, Canada.
Study Design
Randomized field experiment varying company location (e.g., ABC Inc., Toronto versus ABC Inc., Mumbai) while holding company brand and job descriptions identical across resumes.
Results
Resumes listing foreign job experience at multinational firms received a callback rate of 6.8%, compared to 7.1% for resumes listing local foreign company names, showing no statistically significant benefit from brand recognition (p > 0.10).
Takeaway
Discontinue relying on multinational employer branding as a primary mechanism for conveying international skill transferability to domestic hiring managers.
Source and citation
See source →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.
- Statistically significant
A label used when a result passes a chosen statistical threshold, often p < 0.05. It does not show how large or useful an effect is. A result that is not statistically significant does not prove there is no effect.
ExampleA study reports p = 0.03 against a 0.05 threshold. It passes that test, but the effect could still be too small to matter.
American Statistical Association · Statement on p-values ↗Read more about statistically significant →