The virtues of going virtual
When young people have to choose from almost 200 different occupations, there is a great risk that they will limit and shorten their search radius, resulting in an inefficient match of skills, preferences, and professional requirements. To prevent such inefficiencies, career fairs are held in many countries, where young people can come into contact with the occupations and get a hands-on picture. In their new study, Daniel Goller, Chiara Graf, and Stefan Wolter show that a) career fairs significantly increase the search intensity for open apprenticeship positions, b) the new virtual fairs perform better than the traditional face-to-face fairs, and c) the virtual fairs, in contrast to the in-person fairs, increase the search radius for different occupations, while the latter, contrary to the intentions of the career fairs, seem to narrow it.
