One line on a Russian résumé should have worked like a medal:

Completed voluntary contract during the ‘special military operation’, 2022–2023.

Completed voluntary contract during the ‘special military operation’, 2022–2023.

The Kremlin presents men who fought in Ukraine as patriots, heroes and even a future governing elite.

Yet when I placed that line on ordinary job applications, Russian employers became less likely to respond.

In fact, applications listing voluntary war service received roughly one-third fewer callbacks.

What I did and what I found

For my new study in the Journal of Peace Research, I applied in pairs to 60 real vacancies on Russia’s two largest online job platforms, HeadHunter and SuperJob.

I sent each of the employers who had listed these job vacancies two invented applications from men aged 25 to 35.

The applicants had matching education, work histories and experience. Both listed the rank of private and similar duties, such as logistics support or vehicle maintenance. Names and contact details were switched at random.

Only one detail changed.

One résumé listed routine compulsory military service. The other listed voluntary contract service in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In effect, I was asking not whether military experience would help a candidate land a job, but whether choosing this particular war would carry an extra price.

Researchers use this kind of experiment to reveal unequal treatment by observing decisions, not asking opinions.

I based the templates on 150 public........

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