Human Capital MBA

Job Advertising, Sourcing and Candidate Attraction: The Real Evidence on Referral Hires and Gendered Job Ad Wording

Why Burks, Cowgill, Hoffman and Housman's nine-firm study found referred hires quitting less and staying longer even without looking stronger on paper, why Gaucher, Friesen and Kay's experiments found masculine-coded job ad wording shrinks the pool of women who find a role appealing through belongingness rather than through perceived skill, why that same effect did not replicate the same way in established firms, and why sourcing an active applicant and sourcing a passive candidate are two different problems that the same job ad usually tries, and fails, to solve at once.

2 Nov 2026 · 24 min read