Department of Business and Management, LUISS Guido Carli U., Italy
Public sector workers are often negatively portrayed with ascriptions such as ‘ineffec-tive’ 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 therefore examine stereotypes of similar ad-ministrative occupations across the public and private sector and how this influences attrac-tion in the initial phases of a job search before tangible job attributes even become visible. Our study among 290 job seekers in the United Kingdom provides evidence for a generic public worker bias, but this bias diminishes when the specific occupation is known. Further, we do not find that sector affects attraction or that this relationship is moderated by stereotypes. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the findings and provide directions for future research.