Recruiters Rate Candidates with Liberal Arts + STEM More Hirable

Graduates with liberal arts degrees are typically associated with skills increasingly in demand as AI’s influence grows — creativity, critical thinking, and communication. But how do hiring managers react when those liberal arts graduates also have enhanced science and technology training? 

To find out, Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts surveyed 1,200 U.S. hiring managers in a variety of industries. The survey found that managers rated candidates for an entry-level analyst role with resumes that included a liberal arts degree from a technology-focused institute as more hirable than candidates with a liberal arts degree from a traditional state university. 

“We heard many anecdotal examples, from industry contacts and alumni, of our Ivan Allen liberal arts graduates with STEM skills having a career edge over graduates from traditional liberal arts institutions,” said Amanda Murdie, dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, Regents’ Professor, and Ivan Allen Jr. Chair in Liberal Arts and Technology. “So we set out to test that hypothesis with an old-fashioned science experiment.” 

The survey was conducted in spring 2026 with Georgia Tech Institutional Review Board approval. The survey, conducted through Prolific, gathered responses from U.S.-based adults prescreened for having prior hiring experience and recruited using an even mix of men and women. 

Hiring managers randomly received one of four slightly different resumes: a baseline resume, saying the students has a liberal arts degree from a traditional state university; a resume saying the student had completed STEM coursework (computer science and mathematics); a resume saying the student’s liberal arts degree is from a technology-focused institute; and a resume saying the student has STEM skills and went to a technology-focused institute. All other aspects of the candidate profile, including work experience, skills, and performance indicators, remained the same. 

“We used the four different resumes in order to look at how the coursework common at a technology-focused institution — math and coding — helped hirability, as well as just the name recognition of a tech-based university,” Murdie said. 

The hiring managers were asked to rate candidate attributes that included communication, engineering team fit, ramp-up time, and technical competence. Respondents were told the theoretical position they were hiring for was not a technical role and did not require STEM or technical skills. 

The survey found that any resume that included STEM skills and/or a liberal arts degree from a technology-focused institute improved hiring managers’ rating of the candidate’s hirability. For example, compared to liberal arts-only candidates, candidates with technical coursework received higher ratings on perceived technical competence and team fit, and were viewed as requiring less ramp-up time. 

“There is a lot of buzz among my peers about how being at a tech-focused institution affects our job prospects, so it was extremely exciting to get the opportunity to examine that with data,” said Adiba Syed, a recent Master of Science in Economics graduate who coauthored the survey. “Our findings suggest that hiring managers really do value the combination of liberal arts training and technical skill development that Ivan Allen students bring to the labor market. I think it's important for our students and broader community to know this because it speaks to the unique edge Ivan Allen students bring within Georgia Tech’s broader ecosystem." 

Resumes that included a liberal arts degree from a technology-focused university and advanced mathematics and computing coursework had the highest likelihood of being advanced for an interview — an 11-point increase (on a 0 to 100 scale) in how respondents rated the hirability of the candidate over the baseline liberal arts resume. Candidates from this category were also substantially more likely to be moved forward to an interview relative to the baseline liberal arts degree-only candidates. 

“That’s what we like to call the ‘Ivan Allen Advantage,’” said Murdie. “It’s a unique advantage to study the liberal arts at a technology-based university. The combination of the liberal arts and a technology-infused environment benefits both the tech-related programs and the liberal arts programs, preparing students to lead in a complex world.” 

The research team is also working on a soon-to-be-released survey experiment of how hiring managers rate resumes for an engineering position when the candidate has additional liberal arts coursework compared to a candidate with solely engineering-focused coursework and degree. Preliminary results show a hiring advantage associated with liberal arts training.  

“In our AI environment, hiring managers know that skills like critical writing analysis and ethical decision-making are even more foundational,” Murdie said. “As the world is becoming more technical, core liberal arts training can be what sets a new jobseeker apart.”