Competitiveness and Employability

Abstract

We investigate the impact on employability when job candidates signal different personal tastes for competitions. In three experiments, with close to 3,000 participants in total, we show that non-competitive candidates risk being perceived as less productive, while those who signal a willingness to compete with others may be perceived as less socially skilled. However, displaying a willingness to self-compete, i.e. to challenge oneself to improve over time, seems to increase the likelihood of being perceived as both productive and socially skilled, for both female and male job candidates.