Title: When not having friends may hurt you? High-skilled immigrants' & job search outcomes
Abstract:Using the National Science Foundation's survey of science and engineering doctorates, a significant minority of whom were immigrants, this study sheds light on two questions. First, how does the effec...Using the National Science Foundation's survey of science and engineering doctorates, a significant minority of whom were immigrants, this study sheds light on two questions. First, how does the effectiveness of friendship contacts compare to other types of contacts in finding good jobs? Second, when does poor access to friendship contacts matter more in job search? My results suggest that the lack of friendship contacts did not disadvantage immigrant scientist and engineers in finding research intensive jobs in academia and industry. However, friendship contacts mattered in obtaining managerial jobs in industry. I explored and found support for two possible mechanisms underlying the observed differences in associations between friendship contacts and early career job outcomes of high-skilled immigrants relative to native-born: immigrant scientist and engineers’ reliance on faculty contacts for finding research intensive jobs, and employers’ high (vs. low) concern with candidates’ cultural and occupational ‘fit’ when filling managerial (vs. research) positions, which required working closely with co- workers and customers. Implications for research on social networks and early career jobs in high-skilled labor markets are discussed.Read More
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot