Communicating Corporate Culture in Labor Markets: Evidence from Job Postings

We examine how culture information in job postings influences firms’ hiring outcomes. We utilize machine learning methods to measure five core values present in job postings and demonstrate that culture information helps attract job seekers, as it is associated with higher worker inflows. The effect strengthens when job seekers value culture in their job searches and face frictions in learning about culture from other sources. Additional analyses indicate that individual cultural dimensions in job postings are more salient to job seekers when they have heightened preferences for that particular value. Finally, culture information is associated with a higher likelihood that interviews result in offers, and greater acceptance of those offers. Overall, our results suggest that culture information in job postings helps job seekers sort into culturally aligned firms. This paper was accepted by Ranjani Krishnan, accounting. Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper. Funding: A. H. Huang acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72172079]. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.07272 .