Six research findings that reshape hiring, negotiation and work

Remote jobs demand far more skills

Researchers analyzed fifty million online job postings across twenty-eight European countries from two thousand eighteen to two thousand twenty-one. Remote roles listed twenty-five to forty-two percent more required skills than similar in-person positions.

Remote hiring also demands more experience

Beyond skills, remote postings asked for more prior work experience than in-person roles. The premium was largest in occupations with heavy on-the-job training and roles previously hard to fill locally.

Why employers raise the bar for remote work

Interviews with executives and HR managers revealed reasons for higher requirements: anticipated difficulty training and supporting distant workers, and the larger applicant pool remote roles attract, forcing firms to raise standards to winnow applications.

Remote work disadvantages early-career applicants

Researchers argue that raising remote hiring requirements may disadvantage less experienced, early-career applicants and make internal mobility more difficult, as current employees must compete against more-accomplished external applicants.

Women negotiators build stronger relationships

Across five studies with two thousand four hundred one U.S. participants, women negotiators were rated higher than men on building trust, being fair, listening, communicating, and satisfying counterparts' needs.

Women and men achieve equal economic results

Despite women's relational advantages, men and women achieved equivalent economic results in their deals. This pattern held even in anonymous online negotiations where gender could not be identified from transcripts.

Women's acceptance strategy builds preference

Analysis of negotiation messages showed women were more likely than men to accept offers, a form of yielding that makes partners feel heard and treated fairly. This did not hurt women's economic outcomes.

Women could gain forty-five percent more opportunities

A simulation based on the data suggests that over time, women could receive roughly forty-five percent more opportunities to negotiate, advantages that would compound financially.

“women could receive roughly 45% more opportunities to negotiate”

AI agents expand the scope of work

From February to May two thousand twenty-six, researchers analyzed hundreds of thousands of real-world AI sessions in two Perplexity tools. Users employed agents for chains of autonomous actions, not just single tasks.

Agents enable higher-order cognitive work

Seventy-six percent of agent requests involved analysis, creation, or abstraction, compared with fifty-five percent for assistants. Agents were asked to cross occupational boundaries more often, such as managers developing software.

Agents unlock entirely new types of work

About twenty-three percent of agent queries contained requests that never appeared in the same users' assistant logs at all. Those new tasks were, on average, more complex than the rest.

Referred hires face peer skepticism

Across four studies in Europe and the United States, researchers found that referred coworkers were consistently rated as less deserving of their job than nonreferred ones, even though they performed similarly.

Peers withhold help from referred colleagues

People reported they were less likely to help referred colleagues by sharing information and more willing to engage in subtle antisocial behaviors such as withholding credit.

Perceived merit mismatch triggers peer backlash

Even when referred newcomers had all required credentials, went through the same vetting process, and performed above average, they were still seen as less deserving. Peers believed connection, not competence, led to their success.

Cooperative executives get promoted faster

Researchers analyzed seventy-eight thousand U.S.earnings calls from two thousand ten to two thousand twenty.Among non-CEO C-suite members, executives with above-average cooperativeness scores were almost twice as likely to get promoted in the next year.

Engaging multiple colleagues boosts promotion odds

Executives who invited multiple colleagues to answer analyst questions, not just a single ally, had the highest odds of promotion. Cooperativeness was persistent over time and unrelated to short-term performance.

Markets reward cooperative CEO appointments

When firms appointed a CEO who was more cooperative than the preceding one, the stock gained about zero point six percent in abnormal returns in the three days surrounding the announcement.

Identity fit drives reskilling choices

In a study of about one thousand one hundred job seekers in Italy from two thousand twenty-three to two thousand twenty-four, the strongest driver for choosing to reskill was identity fit, or how closely the…

Wage data increases reskilling uptake

Job seekers would pay about three point five euros an hour to learn IT support skills but needed to be paid about five point three euros per hour to reskill into construction technician roles.

Growth mindset videos don't change behavior

A video on cultivating a growth mindset had no impact on reskilling choices.The informational video increased real IT-related training enrollment and IT-sector employment, but not construction, because viewers did not see themselves as construction workers.