Replication Data for: Landing the First Job: The Value of Intermediaries in Online Hiring

Despite this, intermediaries -- called outsourcing agencies -- have emerged in these markets. This paper shows that agencies signal to employers that inexperienced workers are high quality.

Workers affiliated with an agency have substantially higher job-finding probabilities and wages at the beginning of their careers compared to similar workers without an agency affiliation. This advantage declines after high-quality non-affiliated workers receive good public feedback scores. The results indicate that intermediaries have arisen endogenously to permit a more efficient allocation of workers to jobs.