We design and implement a two-stage randomized field experiment to disentangle the
selection and incentive effects of career and financial incentives where our collaborating nongovernmental
organization (NGO) recruits and trains enumerators for a population census of a
rural catchment district in Malawi. Career incentives in our setting consist of a future job
prospect and a recommendation letter, which are typical components of an internship. The
financial incentive we study consists of a fixed wage, which is not dependent on job performance.
We find that those selected through the career incentive of an internship perform significantly
better than those hired through the financial incentive channel. In addition, we find that an
additional financial incentive increases labor productivity of workers recruited via the internship
channel.