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In some settings, playing hard-to-get may telegraph value. But that doesn’t neatly translate to the labor market, says , assistant professor of management at at 911����.

“Faster replies yield a higher likelihood of being hired, across different types of employers and employment—and every minute can count,” Hart says.

Hart’s recently published paper in  draws upon both real-world and experimental studies, confirming a dramatic “speed premium” for job candidates.

The paper was co-authored by Eric M. VanEpps of Vanderbilt University, Ovul Sezer of Cornell University, and On Amir of UC-San Diego.

The researchers analyzed more than 11 million exchanges from freelancer marketplace , which included pre-hiring conversations between employers and service providers. 

The results showed an inverse correlation between the amount of time it took for a service provider to respond to an employer’s message and that provider’s likelihood of being hired. Even a one-hour delay in replying nearly halved a freelancer’s chance of being hired, and replying after more than 24 hours was equivalent to not replying at all. This negative effect of delay held even when only one freelancer was contacted for the position, showing that it is not simply about availability but about what speed signals.

“Faster replies yield a higher likelihood of being hired, across different types of employers and employment—and every minute can count.”

— Einav Hart, assistant professor of management at Costello College of Business at 911����

“Across every dimension we examined—job type, project size, prior platform experience, technology, and more—even a brief delay of five to ten minutes could dramatically lower the likelihood of hiring the provider,” Hart says.

Experimental studies with over 8,600 participants replicate this effect and illuminate a key reason for it: “Faster replies yield a higher likelihood of hiring because reply speed serves as a signal of employees’ future responsiveness,” says Hart. “If you respond to me very quickly, I expect that you will also respond to my needs and concerns if I hire you, which is a big signal of hireability, and increases my desire to work with you.”

Experimental study participants instructed to act as “employers” were more likely to hire providers who responded more quickly (e.g., after one hour versus several hours), even in specialized professions such as catering and medicine. Moreover, participants rated providers who responded quickly as more warm, competent, and more likely to be responsive in the future. Thus, speed acted as a signal of the provider’s characteristics that, in turn, affected hiring decisions. In other words, it wasn’t the speed per se that swayed employers; instead, it was being used as a proxy for other qualities deemed highly desirable in an employee.

Moreover, one of the studies showed that messages with highly responsive language (e.g., “I’ll make sure to stay in close contact”) produced a higher hiring likelihood, even when delayed, than a more neutrally worded message fired off quickly. This suggests that the content of communications can help compensate for a modest delay. Still, the same content sent faster always led to higher hiring probability, underscoring the speed premium.

Although the paper largely focused on contract-based employment, Hart expects her findings would generalize to more permanent, full-time employment. “Certainly, speed is not the only signal,” she says. “Over a longer relationship, the more you know about a person, the less weight speed might get in those decisions. However, both contingent and potentially long-term hiring begin from the same place of uncertainty on the part of the employer. In fact, if you’re hiring someone to be employed indefinitely, it’s all the more important for them to respond to your needs in a timely manner.”

These findings may tempt job-seekers to automate their responses to be fast. However, Hart argues against this in her recent  article (co-authored by VanEpps). Automating responses or using AI to respond quickly is unlikely to be beneficial: When Hart’s study participants suspected the replies were automated or otherwise not genuine, there were no benefits to speed. 

"An algorithm's reply speed does not signal anything about the employee's warmth, competence, or responsiveness and so, a fast auto-reply can even backfire and make you less hireable,” says Hart. 

To distinguish themselves in a competitive labor marketplace, Hart recommends that job-seekers “take their time to craft your materials, prepare your application, and consider your future responses if and when you are later contacted. But once you get that first bite from an employer, that’s when the clock starts and speed starts to be a much bigger signal of responsiveness and thus of higher hireability.”