Criteria Weights in Hiring Decisions—A Conjoint Approach

Understanding human behavior in the decision-making process represents a challenge for researchers in the socio-economic field. The complexity comes from multiple criteria acting simultaneously. Hiring decisions are made on a set of criteria representing the attributes of the applicants. This study’s main objective is to investigate Romanian employers’ behavior when recruiting for jobs targeting graduates from economic studies. The method used to identify the weights employers assign to different skills was based on an experimental technique-choice based conjoint. A survey experiment was conducted to produce causal conclusions about the recruiting process. The estimation was performed with a methodology based on machine learning, which allows to investigate interactions between subjects’ characteristics and conjoint criteria. The findings of our experiment align with other studies pointing to the increased relevance of non-cognitive skills for employability. Additionally, our results show that criteria weights in hiring decisions depend on company size, ownership, activity sector or personal characteristics of the recruiter. Our research provides a mechanism for understanding employers’ perspectives. This is valuable for informing job seekers to adjust their job search strategies and to invest in the skills offering hiring opportunities. Moreover, universities can use the results to adapt their educational programs to labor market needs.