IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/defpea/v28y2017i5p511-533.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Noncognitive skills and job match: evidence from military applicants

Author

Listed:
  • Elda Pema
  • Stephen Mehay
  • Simona Tick

Abstract

The study examines the effect of noncognitive skills on early career choices among young job seekers. Specifically, we analyze the influence of personality traits on the decision by military applicants either to choose the military or a civilian career option. We use a unique micro-level data-set of applicants to the US Navy and exploit the fact that many individuals who initially apply for military jobs eventually choose civilian careers instead. In this institutional setting, job candidates use new information to update their beliefs about the military job match. Personality traits are viewed as productive abilities that influence applicants’ expectations about the economic return to the job and occupational training offered by the Navy. The study finds that many of the 15 lower order personality facets associated with the Big Five traits are predictive of applicants’ job choices and provides suggestive evidence of a link between personality traits, job match expectations, and career choice.

Suggested Citation

  • Elda Pema & Stephen Mehay & Simona Tick, 2017. "Noncognitive skills and job match: evidence from military applicants," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(5), pages 511-533, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:defpea:v:28:y:2017:i:5:p:511-533
    DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2016.1234203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10242694.2016.1234203
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10242694.2016.1234203?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glatt, Jordan & Wunnava, Phanindra V., 2016. "Help Not Wanted: The Dismal Science of Youth Unemployment's Scarring Effect," IZA Discussion Papers 10069, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Peter Fredriksson & Lena Hensvik & Oskar Nordström Skans, 2018. "Mismatch of Talent: Evidence on Match Quality, Entry Wages, and Job Mobility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(11), pages 3303-3338, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Esteban Aucejo & Jonathan James, 2021. "The Path to College Education: The Role of Math and Verbal Skills," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(10), pages 2905-2946.
    2. Mirjam Bächli & Hélène Benghalem & Doriana Tinello & Damaris Aschwanden & Sascha Zuber & Matthias Kliegel & Michele Pellizzari & Rafael Lalive, 2024. "Ranking occupations by their proximity to workers’ profiles," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 160(1), pages 1-17, December.
    3. Isaac Baley & Ana Figueiredo & Robert Ulbricht, 2022. "Mismatch Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(11), pages 2943-2984.
    4. Michael Böhm & Daniel Metzger & Per Strömberg, 2022. "“Since You’re So Rich, You Must Be Really Smart”: Talent, Rent Sharing, and the Finance Wage Premium," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 147, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    5. Hensvik, Lena & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2023. "The skill-specific impact of past and projected occupational decline," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    6. Hartog, Joop & Raposo, Pedro, 2017. "Are starting wages reduced by an insurance premium for preventing wage decline? Testing the prediction of Harris and Holmstrom (1982)," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 105-119.
    7. Hernnäs, Sofia, 2023. "Automation when skills are bundled," Working Paper Series 2023:2, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    8. Hensvik, Lena & Rosenqvist, Olof, 2015. "The strength of the weakest link: sickness absence, internal substitutability and worker-firm matching," Working Paper Series 2015:28, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    9. Georg Graetz, 2021. "On the interpretation of diploma wage effects estimated by regression discontinuity designs," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 228-258, February.
    10. Lark, Olga & Videnord, Josefin, 2023. "Do Exporters Import Gender Inequality?," Working Papers 2023:6, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    11. Storm, Eduard, 2023. "Skill mismatch and learning-by-doing: Theory and evidence from time allocation on tasks," Ruhr Economic Papers 1021, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    12. Per-Anders Edin & Peter Fredriksson & Martin Nybom & Björn Öckert, 2022. "The Rising Return to Noncognitive Skill," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 78-100, April.
    13. Lena Hensvi & Dagmar Müller & Oskar Nordström Skans, 2023. "Connecting the Young: High School Graduates’ Matching to First Jobs in Booms and Great Recessions," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(652), pages 1466-1509.
    14. DeLoach, Stephen B. & Kurt, Mark & Sansale, Rebecca, 2022. "Non-cognitive mismatch and occupational switching," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    15. Nordström Skans, Oskar & Choné, Philippe & Kramarz, Francis, 2022. "When workers’ skills become unbundled: Some empirical consequences for sorting and wages," Working Paper Series 2022:6, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    16. Kampkötter, Patrick & Petters, Lea M. & Sliwka, Dirk, 2021. "Employee identification and wages – on the economics of “Affective Commitment”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 608-626.
    17. Škrinjarić Bruno, 2023. "Competence Proximity to Employers’ Requirements and Labour Market Success of Economics and Business Graduates," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 18(2), pages 140-161, December.
    18. Luca Coraggio & Marco Pagano & Annalisa Scognamiglio & Joacim Tåg, 2022. "JAQ of All Trades: Job Mismatch, Firm Productivity and Managerial Quality," EIEF Working Papers Series 2205, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised Mar 2022.
    19. Graetz, Georg, 2023. "Imperfect signals," Working Paper Series 2023:10, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    20. Philippe Choné & Francis Kramarz, 2021. "Matching Workers' Skills and Firms' Technologies: From Bundling to Unbundling," Working Papers 2021-10, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:defpea:v:28:y:2017:i:5:p:511-533. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GDPE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.