Leonie Nicks
Head of Crime, Security & Justice
We ran a randomised controlled trial, comparing four equivalent CVs and cover letters, with the following differences in the way the employment history was described:
We applied to 9,022 job vacancies over a 6-month period spanning October 2019 to March 2020. We found that displaying experience in terms of the number of years rather than dates led to a 4.8 percentage point (14.6%) increase in the positive callback rate. Further analysis suggested that the ‘no dates’ CV variant performed best for high skill and full-time roles.
It made no difference to the callback rate whether the gap was explained for childcare or left unexplained. Qualitative research finds that HR professionals express a preference for an explanation in interviews, but this does not translate to recruitment behaviour.
The difference in callback rates for CVs with and without gaps was not significant. These results do not replicate findings from previous studies in the unemployment literature and may be due to specific contextual factors of this trial.
Head of Crime, Security & Justice
Research Advisor
Research Advisor
Principal Advisor
Design and development by Soapbox.