One of the risks which a firm faces in hiring a worker is uncertainty over their true productivity. This essay should examine why firms might prefer to hire a worker whose productivity is more uncertain, including empirical evidence on when (or if) this occurs.
With the rapid growth of data analytics and behavioural economics, more and more human resources managers are beginning to realize the importance of personal information during the recruitment. They are trying to evaluate people through interview or internship in order to reduce the risk of hiring a less productive worker and some firms would like to pay a higher wage for the famous instead of trying the fresh due to the risk.
In the movie “Moneyball”, Billy Beane works as a general manager for one small-market baseball team of MLB which is not wealth enough to hire the best hitters like the New York
Yankees or Boston Red Sox. Beane breaks the traditional way of hiring and seeks the lowercost risky players by using his “scientific data”. After few years, the Oakland A’s with its undervalued players eventually gets 98 wins. In another famous movie, The Devil Wears
Prada, Andrea as a young college graduate who was not stylish, slender or worships the runway get her first job in the fashion magazine because Miranda,the supervisor of the magazine, think she is quite different from the pervious girls. Miranda takes the risk and the
“smart fat girl ” show her a miracle at last.
From these movies, we know that not only the star can win the game, but also the
“uncertain” player. In reality, the three main steps of recruitment is the analysis of the risk, decision-making and salary determination. Managers always face the problem of hiring the risky worker who has an uncertain output or the safe worker who has a certain output.
Suppose that, a firm should choose between worker A whose productivity is