Improving Job Matching Among Youth

The project examines the impact of job-search assistance and career guidance on youth employment. The project is in collaboration with Silatech, which runs online job-search portals in several Arab countries, where youth unemployment is especially high. The previous literature has found that job-search and career guidance improves employment outcomes but has been less successful at identifying the main mechanisms. The online format of Silatech’s services also facilitates the design and implementation of tailored interventions that test specific hypothesized barriers to youth employment, e.g., adding a website features whereby users can set themselves deadlines to complete applications that is based on the hypothesis that procrastination inhibits job search. Thus, the first component of the project is to analyze Silatech’s rich (non-experimental) data to identify likely barriers such as procrastination or misinformation about which jobs one is qualified for, and then design an intervention that aims to overcome them. The second component of the project is to evaluate two existing services Silatech offers: online counseling on which careers the individual’s personality is well-suited for (psychometric tests with a follow-up online session with a counselor) and an (offline) information session on private sector job opportunities.