PONE-D-22-19619Costly Mistakes: Why and When Spelling Errors in Resumes Jeopardise Interview ChancesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sterkens,

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This paper assesses the effect of spelling errors on the interview chances of applicants. The authors conducted a vignette online experiment with real recruiters as participants. To obtain causal estimates they randomly allocated spelling errors to job applications. Results show an interview penalty that is stronger for blue-collar jobs and in case of a higher number of mistakes. The paper is well-written and competently executed. Here are my main comments.

1. The authors rely on a vignette experiment to assess the hiring behavior of recruiters. This opens the question of external validity i.e. do we expect the recruiters to behave similarly in a controlled setting observed by the researchers compared to a real job hiring setting? I would appreciate a discussion on this and also what the previous literature said. An alternative more real-world experiment that they could have done is to send fictitious CVs to real job vacancies. Therefore, it is relevant to compare the pro and cons of the vignette study over the CV experiment and whether these two methods tend to produce compatible results.

2. After cleaning the dataset, the authors remain with 445 professionals in their samples. What is the response rate to the online survey and the selection/cleaning rate? Can this affect the external validity of the finding?

3. The authors have other control variables that could be used to enhance the efficiency of the estimates (e.g., participant mother tongue, nationality, education level, and hiring tenure). It seems to me that only for a subset of covariates was used in the final regression (age, gender, language sensitivity), I would therefore like to see the results if all the control variables are included.

4. It should be specified what "α" is (e.g. line 344) as it is not mentioned until that point.

5. I found it interesting that women tend to be hired more than men (see e.g. Table 4). Since also gender was randomized in the application, this may also be interpreted as causal. Do the authors have an explanation for that, for example the type of jobs chosen (this brings back the question of external validity)?

6. The main outcome is "the probability they would invite an applicant for a first job interview (hereafter referred to as ‘interview probability’)" (line 290). I have therefore not clear why the coefficient of B=-1.85 is translated to -18.5 percentage points.

7. The authors compare their results on the total penalty to Toorenburg et al. (2015), which uses white collar and five errors only. The authors should compare Toorenburg to their own estimates on white collar and five errors only.

8. I would clarify the sentence at line 401, by modifying it as follows (or something similar): "As participants could vary in unobserved, confounding variables, a causal interpretation of the interactions regarding the PARTICIPANT CHARACTERISTICS is inappropriate."

9. The authors mention at the beginning of the paper that one of their main contributions is to estimate the effect also for blue-collar occupations since the previous literature mostly focused on white-collar jobs. I would stress throughout the paper that when they mentioned “jobs with high educational requirement" they actually mean white-collar jobs.

Small comments:

- missing space on page 13, line 275

Reviewer #2: This is a well-written research article dealing with an interesting topic. Both the experimental design and empirical analysis are reasonable, and the results are clear.

Some suggestions for improvements:

1. The authors introduce spelling errors in the fictitious resumes. However, language errors come in many forms and could be both pure spelling errors and more structural grammatical errors. It would be nice if the authors could elaborate more on their choice of spelling errors. How common are the spelling errors used? Will standard word-processing software detect these spelling errors, and hence make them less likely to occur in real-world resumes? Would an alternative design with grammatical error be more interesting? The authors should discuss these issues briefly in the main text, and include the actual spelling-errors used in an online appendix. The authors should also include an example of the vignette in the online appendix.

2. The presentation of the results could be improved. Table 4 contains the main results, but this table is rather large and somewhat difficult to read. I would suggest that the authors include more guidance to the reader in the main text about where the reader should look in the table (i.e., clearer references to the panels and columns when they discuss different estimates/results). Also, the results for the interactions with two spelling errors should be included in an online appendix.

3. A major limitation with the study is the hypothetical nature of the methodology used; i.e. the participants know that they answer a survey and that their answers have no real-world consequences. This is mentioned and discussed in the concluding section, but this limitation is so important that it should be highlighted earlier (i.e., briefly in the introduction and in the section on method).

Reviewer #3: I found this paper to be a very compelling and clear read. The authors tackle an interesting question in a very competent and thorough manner. I found some grammar mistakes : ) but they were too few to remember. I would encourage them to pursue a field experiment as a complement to the lab experiment described in their work as it would provide external validation to their results. But that would be the goal of another paper.

I have one small suggestion: to describe how long it took the recruiters to evaluate their three applications and complete the follow-up survey.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Costly Mistakes: Why and When Spelling Errors in Resumes Jeopardise Interview Chances

PONE-D-22-19619R1

Dear Dr. Sterkens,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Federica Maria Origo

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have answered all my comments and questions competently. I look forward to see the publication. Congratulations.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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