The downside of looking for team players in job advertisements

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the percentage of job advertisements requiring teamwork skills has greatly increased. However, the effects of requiring teamwork skills on the applicant pool are not yet clear. Addressing this research gap, this article makes use of original data from an online survey applying conjoint design. The survey evidence points to (a) effectively induced self-selection with respect to teamwork skills, but also (b) an adverse effect of requiring teamwork skills on the task-related skills of the applicants. More specifically, requiring teamwork skills in job advertisements resulted in potential employees with higher teamwork skills, ceteris paribus, applying with a significantly higher probability. However, it also resulted in potential employees with higher task-related skills, ceteris paribus, applying with a significantly lower probability. Considering that organizations always need employees with high task-related skills, but that they may not always need team players, they should carefully consider when the requirement for teamwork skills is listed in their job advertisements—because there is a downside to looking for team players.