The strong adverse selection that can be met by immigrants in hosting labour markets may induce them to adopt some behaviours or signals to modify employers' beliefs. Relevant mechanisms at reaching this purpose are: personal reputation; belonging to ethnic networks deeply-rooted in the hosting country; and high educational levels as an indirect signal of productivity. On this last point, the immigrant status needs a "stronger" signal than that necessary for a local worker, and this may lead the immigrant to accept professional qualifications lower than his educational level. This could explain the overeducation problem that characterizes many countries, Italy included.
Aim of the paper is to investigate whether the above mentioned mechanisms are adopted by immigrants in Italy, and if they are useful in increasing immigrants' probability of employment. The empirical analysis has been conducted using the dataset from the Istat Labour Force Survey (first quarter, 2006), collecting information about 6860 documented immigrants in our country. We estimate a logit model for immigrants' probability of being employed, focusing on the above mentioned mechanisms: reputation, ethnic networks and educational level. Moreover we concentrate on the interaction effects of the mechanisms and investigate whether one of them wins on the others. Results show that each of the three mechanisms is statistically significant and positive, that is each of them increases the immigrant's probability of being employed. Anyway, a high level of education increases the probability of employment at least more than belonging to ethnic networks deeply-rooted in Italy.