aikyam school

Psychological Costs of Application Initiation

Jobseekers often submit suboptimally low numbers of job applications despite high potential returns and negligible monetary or time costs. This under-search occurs because initiating an application requires active cognitive effort, attention allocation, and overcoming procrastination or fear of rejection.

Picture this

Imagine standing next to a table full of free, high-value gift cards, but claiming one requires placing a phone call. Most people postpone making the call because starting takes a mental push. If someone hands them a ringing phone and asks whether to claim the gift card, they instantly accept. Defaulting the start of a process to an external prompt removes the mental threshold required to initiate action.

What the evidence says

Proactive phone call initiation increased the job application rate by 600% (from 0.185% to 1.507% of matches, effect = 0.01322, p < 0.001) and increased the interview invitation rate by 550% (from 0.012% to 0.090% of matches, effect = 0.00078, p < 0.001).

Who
N = 9,838 jobseekers (1,116,952 jobseeker-vacancy matches) across representative households in Lahore, Pakistan (31% female, average age 30.7 years).
How
Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) comparing a baseline text-message notification system against a proactive phone-call initiation treatment on a job matching platform over four years.

What to do

Reconfigure outreach platforms to initiate contact and prompt immediate decision-making directly rather than relying on users to initiate actions after receiving passive notifications.

From the source

"An experiment that changes the default process for initiating job applications increases applications by 600% on a search platform in Pakistan."

Why_Don’t_Jobseekers_Search_More_Barriers_and_Returns_to_Search.pdf

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