Out of sight, out of mind: Do students believe in career prospects by studying on campus?

Most studies analyze the impact of working from home on workers’ career prospects with their current employers. Other studies show the importance of job referrals by social networks. I investigate the impact of studying on-campus on career prospects with (potential) future employers. To investigate the issue, I designed and conducted a survey experiment among 225 first year undergraduate students at a large European University in 2015. I find that social skills are perceived to be more important than performance in referring peers for jobs. However, despite a treatment that suggest that studying on-campus can overcome the working from home penalty, students continue to opt to study from home to signal their capabilities through their grades. I conclude that students may study hard to get into jobs, but do not adhere to signaling (social) skills on-campus which seems to be about as important to make career.