Many universities are rapidly adapting to education in the age of generative AI by trying to develop AI skills in their students. There is an assumption that employers want graduates with AI skills across all disciplines, but is there evidence to support that? This recent discussion paper by Teo Firpo (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Lukas Niemann (Tanso Technologies), and Anastasia Danilov (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) provides an early answer. I say it's an early answer because their data come from 2021, before the wave of generative AI innovation that became ubiquitous following the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022. The research also focuses on AI-related qualifications, rather than the more general AI skills, but it's a start.
Firpo et al. conduct a correspondence experiment, where they:
...sent 1,185 applications to open vacancies identified on major UK online job platforms... including Indeed.co.uk, Monster.co.uk, and Reed.co.uk. We restrict applications to entry-level positions requiring at most one year of professional experience, and exclude postings that demand rare or highly specialized skills...
Each identified job posting is randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: a "treatment group", which receives a résumé that includes additional AI-related qualifications and a "control group", which receives an otherwise identical résumé without mentioning such qualifications.
Correspondence experiments are relatively common in the labour economics literature (see here, for example), and involve the researcher making job applications with CVs (and sometimes cover letters) that differ in known characteristics. In this case, the applications differed by whether the CV included an AI-related qualification or not. Firpo et al. then focus on differences in callback rates, and they differentiate between 'strict callbacks' (invitations to interview), and 'broad callbacks' (any positive employer response, including requests for further information). Comparing callback rates between CVs with and without AI-related qualifications, they find:
...no statistically significant difference between treatment and control groups for either outcome measure...
However, when they disaggregate their results by job function, they find that:
In both Marketing and Engineering, résumés listing AI-related qualifications receive higher callback rates compared to those in the control group. In Marketing, strict callback rates are 16.00% for AI résumés compared to 7.00% for the control group (p-value = 0.075...), while broad callback rates are 24.00% versus 12.00% (p-value = 0.043...). In Engineering, strict callback rates are 10.00% for AI résumés compared to 4.00% for the control group (p-value = 0.163...), while broad callback rates are 20.00% versus 8.00% (p-value = 0.024...).
For the other job functions (Finance, HR, IT, and Logistics) there was no statistically significant effect of AI qualifications on either measure of callback rates. Firpo et al. then estimate a regression model and show that:
...including AI-related qualifications increases the probability of receiving an interview invitation for marketing roles by approximately 9 percentage points and a broader callback by 12 percentage points. Similarly, the interaction between the treatment dummy and the Engineering job function dummy in the LPM models is positive and statistically significant, but only for broad callbacks. AI-related qualifications increase the probability of a broad callback by at least 11 percentage points...
The results from the econometric model are only weakly statistically significant, but they are fairly large in size. However, I wouldn't over-interpret them because of the multiple-comparison problem (around five percent of results would show up as statistically significant just by chance). At best, the evidence that employers valued AI-related qualifications in 2021 is pretty limited, based on this research.
Firpo et al. were worried that employers might not have noticed the AI qualifications in the CVs, so they conducted an online survey of over 700 professionals with hiring experience and domain knowledge, but that survey instead shows that the AI-related qualification was salient and a signal of greater technical skills, but lower social skills. These conflicting signals are interesting, and suggestive that employers are looking for both technical skills and social skills in entry-level applicants. Does this, alongside the earlier results for different job functions, imply that technical skills are weighted more heavily than social skills for Engineering and Marketing jobs? I could believe that for Engineering, but for Marketing I have my doubts, because interpersonal skills are likely to be important in Marketing. Again though, it's probably best not to over-interpret the results.
Firpo et al. conclude that:
...our findings challenge the assumption that AI-related qualifications unambiguously enhance employability in early-career recruitment. While such skills might be valued in abstract or strategic terms, they do not automatically translate into interview opportunities, at least not in the entry-level labor market in job functions such as HR, Finance, Marketing, Engineering, IT and Logistics.
Of course, these results need to be considered in the context of their time. In 2021, AI-related skills might not have been much in demand by employers. That is unlikely to hold true now, given that generative AI use has become so widespread. It would be interesting to see what a more up-to-date correspondence experiment would find.
[HT: Marginal Revolution]
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