Scouting for Good Jobs: Gender and Network Mobilization in the Search for Managerial Work

Abstract

This paper examines gender differences in job-search networking in order to better understand how women and men end up in different jobs. We find that in addition to seeking the same networking benefits as men do, women use networking – especially with other women – to seek out fine-grained, gender-relevant information about employers that might affect their career prospects, a behavior we term “scouting.” In Study 1, we use server logs to directly observe job-seeking MBA students’ outreach to alumni. Consistent with scouting, we find that female students reach out to significantly more women than their male classmates and to at least as many men. In Study 2, interviews with 46 MBA students reveal that women networked with other women in order to learn about gender dynamics in the workplace and about employers’ support for parenting, two topics that men rarely explored in their networking. We discuss the implications of our findings for our understanding of workplace gender segregation and gender differences in networks.