What the sports line on your CV signals

Surveys in the United States and Germany show that people who exercise tend to earn more. But is that because their bodies are stronger, or because people who play sport have something else going for them? Swedish economist Dan-Olof Rooth tackled this question in two ways.

What we know

The first was a field experiment. He sent fictitious job applications to real job openings. The applications were nearly identical; the only difference was whether a leisure sport was listed. Applications that mentioned a sport had a callback rate about 2 percentage points higher.

The second was an analysis linking fitness tests taken at military conscription, at age 18, to later earnings. Fitter men earned about 4–5% more. But once non-cognitive skills, such as persistence and the ability to work with others, were taken into account, the gap fell to about 2%.

The type of sport also mattered. The differences showed up for sports played with other people, such as football and golf. Running and swimming showed no clear difference.

Rooth interprets these results as evidence that sport works as a signal of sociability. To an employer, it suggests that this person gets along with others.

How to read it

The two analyses differ in strength.

The application experiment changes only the sports line, so it supports a causal reading: listing a sport increased the callback rate. However, it only covers the first screening stage. It did not follow candidates through hiring or into their pay.

The fitness and earnings analysis uses observational data with statistical adjustment, so it shows a correlation. The fact that the gap shrank from 4–5% to 2% once non-cognitive skills were considered suggests that traits growing alongside fitness, rather than fitness itself, may be linked to earnings.

This is also evidence from the Swedish labour market. Which hobbies employers like to see probably varies by country and industry. We have not found a Japanese study using the same design.

So the reading that fits this research is not “playing sport increases your pay.” It is “playing sport with others can be read as a clue about your social skills.”

A small step for today

The lesson here is not to exercise for show. It is to make room, in a sustainable way, for moving your body while connecting with people.

• Invite a colleague or friend for a walk, or to walk one extra stop after lunch.
• Look up one group that seems easy to join, such as a local club, a work team or a casual futsal game.
• On days you exercise alone, still log “Moved for 5+ minutes” in the app.

On the work side, the habit “Wrote one line on today’s progress” also helps. What you really want to convey in an application or a review is what you have done. A daily record gives you material to explain yourself.

The sports line is a small window onto who you are. Rather than decorating the window, build the life behind it, one step at a time.

Sources

• [A3] Rooth (2011) Work out or out of work — The labor market return to physical fitness and leisure sports activities. Labour Economics.
• [A1] Kosteas (2012) The Effect of Exercise on Earnings: Evidence from the NLSY. Journal of Labor Research.