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From my experience with friends going through the residency match, more people end up unhappy or mediocre about their match rather than happy. I say this as the

From my experience with friends going through the residency match, more people end up unhappy or mediocre about their match rather than happy. I say this as the partner of someone who matched at their number one choice. The day was defined for me by how I felt for all of our friends who didn't end up at their number one (or 2nd-5th choice) and ended up feeling somewhat broken.

keenmaster 7y ago
I can't assess that analogy without knowing what your friends were dissatisfied with. Was it because they ended up in a different state away from their family? Was it because their coworkers were worse than they expected? Etc...some problems will always exist, regardless of the matching modality. Additionally, people always want more. They often think they can get better when they get exactly what they deserve, along reasonably objective measures of assessment. Lastly, there is selection bias in who you hear from. All the residency announcements I see on Facebook are wildly happy, with exclamation marks and all. I won't conclude from that that everyone is happy with their match, just like I don't believe the reverse. Increasing matching efficiency reduces transaction costs. Those costs are huge, and they lower our quality of life and the dynamism of our economy. Our financial markets are very liquid most of the time. An underappreciated fact is that the aforementioned liquidity increases investment and keeps America on top of the world. Our labor markets aren't nearly as liquid. That is why there is a disconnect between how well corporations are doing and how well employees are doing. Both people and corporations would be better off if our labor markets were more liquid. We currently don't have the tools to make that happen. However, they are easy to create. They just need widespread buy-in and agreement on the core problem of inefficient matching in the labor markets. Think of all the people who would have benefited from internships they never got and better jobs that they never applied for. If they got those internships and got those jobs, not only would they benefit, the whole country would benefit. It is in our collective interest to 1. keep people employed 2. at the best job at the best company 3. that is equal in quality to the person's qualifications. You can bring up the fuzziness and subjectiveness of qualifications and job quality, but let's be real. We all know who from our graduating class can get a job at an SP500 company and who can get a job at a Russell 2000 company. Both would benefit from a common app-style job application for different reasons. Let's stop pretending otherwise, because that hinders innovation and keeps us in the unsatisfactory status quo.
- adenadel 7y ago
  All of the residency announcements I saw on Facebook were also wildly happy, but I know for a fact that some of the people who posted those were literally in tears before that and put themselves together to post a "happy" announcement. Personally, I like the idea of having the option to choose whether or not to accept an offer. I'm not so sold on the idea that a match system will improve labor liquidity. How do you negotiate wages? Medical residents are stuck with the salary of the site that they matched at. When you enter the match, you cannot simply choose not to accept the job "offer" you are given.

keenmaster 7y ago

I can't assess that analogy without knowing what your friends were dissatisfied with. Was it because they ended up in a different state away from their family? Was it because their coworkers were worse than they expected? Etc...some problems will always exist, regardless of the matching modality. Additionally, people always want more. They often think they can get better when they get exactly what they deserve, along reasonably objective measures of assessment. Lastly, there is selection bias in who you hear from. All the residency announcements I see on Facebook are wildly happy, with exclamation marks and all. I won't conclude from that that everyone is happy with their match, just like I don't believe the reverse. Increasing matching efficiency reduces transaction costs. Those costs are huge, and they lower our quality of life and the dynamism of our economy. Our financial markets are very liquid most of the time. An underappreciated fact is that the aforementioned liquidity increases investment and keeps America on top of the world. Our labor markets aren't nearly as liquid. That is why there is a disconnect between how well corporations are doing and how well employees are doing. Both people and corporations would be better off if our labor markets were more liquid. We currently don't have the tools to make that happen. However, they are easy to create. They just need widespread buy-in and agreement on the core problem of inefficient matching in the labor markets. Think of all the people who would have benefited from internships they never got and better jobs that they never applied for. If they got those internships and got those jobs, not only would they benefit, the whole country would benefit. It is in our collective interest to 1. keep people employed 2. at the best job at the best company 3. that is equal in quality to the person's qualifications. You can bring up the fuzziness and subjectiveness of qualifications and job quality, but let's be real. We all know who from our graduating class can get a job at an SP500 company and who can get a job at a Russell 2000 company. Both would benefit from a common app-style job application for different reasons. Let's stop pretending otherwise, because that hinders innovation and keeps us in the unsatisfactory status quo.

adenadel 7y ago
All of the residency announcements I saw on Facebook were also wildly happy, but I know for a fact that some of the people who posted those were literally in tears before that and put themselves together to post a "happy" announcement. Personally, I like the idea of having the option to choose whether or not to accept an offer. I'm not so sold on the idea that a match system will improve labor liquidity. How do you negotiate wages? Medical residents are stuck with the salary of the site that they matched at. When you enter the match, you cannot simply choose not to accept the job "offer" you are given.