The Perception and Evaluation of Founder Experience by Hiring Firms: A Field Experiment

Getting a Worker: Recruiters, Culture, and On‐the‐Job Skilling1

“…For example, one recent audit study found that start-up founders were disadvantaged as applicants compared with salaried employees, and that failed founders were seen as more desirable than successful ones. The presumed skills derived from founder experience were outweighed by the fear that founders (especially successful ones) would have a weaker long-term commitment to employment (Botelho and Chang 2020). In other cases, where employers need to choose between a worker who seems more productive and one who will stay longer, we can imagine they would also hire on the balance of these two costs.…”

“…This article adopts an alternate strategy to explain why some employers use cultural matching to hire workers . Previous research has already shown that head‐hunters can provide detailed and candid insight into their clients (Botelho and Chang 2020; Coverdill and Finlay 2017). In this article, I expand on this by bringing in other recruiters including lower‐end staffing agencies and by triangulating with in‐house human resources (HR) professionals.…”

Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship

“…Recent research in management and strategy provides some insight into the relationship between IDE failure and the subsequent careers of the founders and employees. Botelho and Chang (2019) use a field experiment to study how former founders are evaluated by recruiters when they attempt to enter the traditional labor market. They find that IDE founders receive fewer callbacks than otherwise identical non-founders, with formerly successful founders receiving fewer callbacks than former "failed" founders.…”