First impressions: An analysis of professional stereotypes and their impact on sector attraction

Public sector professionals are often negatively portrayed with ascriptions such as “ineffective” and “lazy.” Such negative connotations might disadvantage public sector organizations when trying to attract applicants, as it can reflect negatively on individuals’ social identities. With this pre-registered experimental study, we examine stereotypes of public and private sector workers with and without a signal of specific professions present across both the public and private sector. We examine how this influences attraction in the initial phases of a job search before tangible job attributes become visible. Our study among 290 job seeking citizens in the United Kingdom provides evidence for a generic public sector worker bias, but the bias diminishes when the specific profession is known. Furthermore, we find that job seekers are less attracted to public employment and that this relationship is influenced by a negativity bias against public sector workers. We discuss implications of the study.