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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of two instrumental organizational attributes (innovative perks and training) and one symbolic organizational attribute (ethics) on applicant attraction.

Using a sample of business undergraduates in their final year (n=339) and a policy-capturing approach, the authors tested a 2 (absence/presence of innovative perks) ×2 (few/many training opportunities) ×2 (ethics is not very important/is important) quasi-experimental design using ANCOVA.

In regard to main effects, results show that all attributes have a significant effect on applicant attraction, the “ethics” organizational attribute having the strongest direct effect followed by “training” and then “innovative perks.” In regard to all interaction effects, findings are only significant for two two-way interaction effects: “innovative perks×training” and “innovative perks×ethics.” Specifically, results indicate that offering innovative perks only had a positive and significant effect on applicant attraction when: a firm offered few training opportunities and ethics was important for the firm.

This study compared three key organizational attributes where most studies only tested one. Understanding which organizational attributes have the greatest influence on potential candidates’ attraction can help organizations optimize recruiting. The results suggest that developing an organizational brand that focuses particularly on ethics and training constitutes a winning recruitment strategy. This experiment is the first to provide causal conclusions on the relationship between innovative perks and attraction.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effect of human resource systems on organization attraction. Furthermore, the authors theorize and test how the vocational interests of prospective employees can serve as boundary conditions that affect the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and organization attraction.

To achieve these ends, this study conducts a scenario-based experiment with prospective employees to examine the effects of HPWS and vocational interests on organization attraction.

The authors demonstrated that HPWS is an important feature for organization attraction. Despite the generally positive linkage between HPWS and organization attraction, the most important implication of the findings is that job applicants also have an important role in responding to the features being used by a firm to attract applicants through HPWS. For example, potential job applicants with higher (rather than lower) social vocational interests are more likely to be attracted to the HPWS of firms.

This study has limitations that must be considered. In particular, the authors treated HPWS as a unidimensional construct. Given the study design, it is unclear whether the attraction effects are driven by HPWS as a whole or whether they are being driven by any single or multiple component(s) of the system. Future research needs to consider examining how specific practices are matched with specific vocational interests by using multiple scenarios where they bundle different high-performance work practices. Doing so would further the understanding of which specific practices affect attraction and for whom.

This study contributes to the authors’ knowledge of the effects of HPWS on organization attraction. In addition, job applicants’ social vocational interest plays an important role in strengthening the relationship between HPWS and organization attraction.

The purpose of this study is to understand how applicant gender may interact with recruiter and organizational characteristics to affect organization attraction. Interpreting characteristics of individuals (e.g., recruiters) and organizations requires some degree of interpersonal sensitivity. Evidence shows that women are generally more skilled in this area than men, but women’s skills are not stronger when evaluating characteristics that are male relevant (e.g., dominance, status).

This study used an experimental between-subjects design in one sample of undergraduate students and one sample of working adults to explore the interaction of applicant gender with two known predictors of organization attraction: recruiter competence and hiring firm reputation.

As hypothesized, there was a significant interaction between recruiter competence and applicant gender on organization attraction in both samples. Contrary to the hypothesis, there was a significant interaction between hiring firm reputation and applicant gender in the sample of working adults, but not the sample of undergraduate students.

Results suggest that firms wishing to increase the number of women in their workforces should be particularly mindful of how they select and train recruiters as well as how positively their reputation is perceived by potential job applicants.

These results suggest that there may be gender differences in how applicants perceive and react to a variety of factors during the recruitment process that previous research has not considered.

Despite general assumptions that recruitment is important to organizational success, little empiric evidence exists to confirm that different recruitment approaches lead to meaningful differences in attraction outcomes. This study begins to address this research need by examining the attraction outcomes of firms competing head‐to‐head for recruits for similar positions. Results of an analysis of 391 applicant pools representing 18 different job families suggest that applicant pool quality can vary substantially within and across job families. Utility estimates, based on the hiring of a single employee and using Grade Point Average (GPA) as a measure of applicant quality, produced differences within applicant pools for hiring a single individual valued as high as $15,000. The average difference between the highest and lowest quality applicant pools across 18 job families was $6,394.45 (SD = $3,533.20).

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to discuss the application of a multi‐level perspective to signaling theory in a recruitment context. Then to discuss how the integration of signaling theory and the social identity approach may provide an improved understanding of the associations between an organization's recruitment activities and applicant attraction outcomes. The paper, first, summarizes the existing research and theoretical developments pertaining to signaling theory, multi‐level theory, and the social identity approach. From this literature a theoretical model from which research propositions are developed is suggested.

This is a literature review, within recruitment contexts, on signaling theory, the association between market signals and applicant attraction outcomes, and the integration of signaling, social identity, and self‐categorization theories as a theoretical foundation for research propositions.

Despite widespread acceptance of signaling theory in recruitment research, surprisingly little is known about the boundary conditions in the association between an organization's recruitment activities and applicant attraction outcomes.

A greater understanding of the application of signaling theory will enable managers to design and administer recruitment activities and processes in order to improve applicant attraction to recruiting organizations.

This paper fills a void in the recruitment literature by integrating signaling theory, social identity theory, and self‐categorization theory and providing avenues for future work.

The ability to work anytime from anywhere is attractive to job seekers, who respond by developing needs regarding flexible working. Flexibility needs are compared to the flexibility perceived in job advertisements to form an overall perception of flexibility fit. The purpose of this paper is to examine both the impact of flexibility fit (on applicant attraction) and its antecedents.

The impact of flexibility fit on applicant attraction and its antecedents are examined using person–job (PJ) fit theory. 92 job seekers analyzed a total of 391 job advertisements. The hypotheses are tested using multilevel structural equation modeling.

The results show that perceived flexibility fit is positively related to job pursuit and job acceptance intentions. They further show that perceived flexibility fit is driven by perceived job advertisements' flexibility exceeding applicants' needed flexibility, which in turn is driven by the flexibility actually present in job advertisements exceeding applicants' flexibility needs.

This study contributes to literature on new ways of working by highlighting the desirable nature of flexibility and its impact on fit perceptions. It further contributes to literature on job search and PJ fit by investigating a full model of fit, examining both outcomes and antecedents of perceived fit. For practitioners, this study highlights the importance of advertising flexibility to attract applicants.

This study aims to investigate whether organizational image: mediates the relationship between web site attributes and organizational attraction and moderates the relationship between person‐job (P‐J) fit and organizational attraction.

A total of 320 observations were collected from 80 senior‐level undergraduates, each half navigating a different set of four actual organizational web sites.

Organizational image was found to fully mediate the relationship between a web site's aesthetic features and organizational attraction; and moderate the relationship between P‐J fit perceptions and organizational attraction such that the change in organizational attraction was more sensitive to perceptions of P‐J fit when organizational image perceptions were more unfavorable rather than favorable. In addition, intercept differences revealed that individuals with below average P‐J fit were more attracted to organizations having a favorable image than an unfavorable image.

Findings underscore the importance of the positive relationship between organizational image and organizational attraction. In addition, organizations should assess applicant reactions to their web page, as it relates to perceptions and attitudes toward the organization.

This study integrates the web environment with two of the strongest antecedents to organizational attraction, organizational image and perceived P‐J fit.

The paper aims to clarify some incongruence between theoretical established grounds, that assume that an applicants' assessment of organizations is constrained by individual contextual factors, and dubious empirical findings. It seeks to propose that previous work experience (PWE) and previous response to job advertisements experience (PRA) interact with the vacancy elements of job and organizational attributes (OA) for the prediction of organizational attractiveness.

An adapted employment advertisement describing a job and an organization was presented to 227 participants from the marketing area (72 professionals and 155 marketing undergraduates), who were asked to respond to a questionnaire containing the measures of the study variables. The hypotheses were tested using linear regression methodology.

Empirical evidence showed that the assessment of the vacancy is constrained by individual contextual factors. PWE and PRA moderated the relation between the OA and attractiveness. PRA moderated the relation between perceived knowledge of results (KR) of the job and attractiveness.

The results imply different job searching profiles according to the type of applicants' prior experiences. A more experienced profile of applicants appears to have a job‐searching strategy based on the KR of the job itself and on the type of OA. A more junior profile appears to have a job‐searching strategy focused on the organization, and less related with the job itself.

Theoretically, the paper discusses the influences of individual context factors in organizational attraction. Empirically, it provides evidence of the role of applicants' previous experiences when assessing organizations. In practical terms, it discusses directions towards employee attraction activities. 

This study aims to examine the influence of different corporate social responsibility (CSR) dimensions on prospective applicants’ responses, namely, organizational attractiveness and intention to apply for a job vacancy (IAJV).

Using an experimental 2 × 3 crossed factorial design (n = 195), the level of engagement of a hypothetical company in socially responsible practices (high vs low) was manipulated concerning three dimensions of CSR (employees, community and environment and economic level). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions and, after reading the corresponding scenario, were asked to evaluate the extent to which the company was considered a good place to work and their IAJV in it.

The level of engagement in socially responsible practices had a positive effect both on the degree to which participants favorably perceived the organization as a place to work and on their IAJV. Furthermore, the level of engagement in practices toward employees and in the economic domain had a stronger effect on participants’ responses than the engagement in practices that benefit community and environment.

Data were obtained in a laboratory setting, so the generalization of results to actual job search settings must be made with caution.

CSR can be a source of competitive advantage in the recruitment of new employees. Because not all CSR dimensions have the same effect on applicants’ responses, companies should take into account the CSR dimensions in which they are engaged and communicate them to the public.

As far as we know, this is the first study to examine the impact of different CSR dimensions both on organizational attractiveness and IAJV.

Two primary approaches have been used to study employment brands and branding. First, there is a long history of the study of organizational attraction. Second, in the past 10–15 years, there has been growth in a hybrid stream of research combining branding concepts from the consumer psychology literature with I/O psychology frameworks of organizational attraction and applicant job search behavior. In this chapter, we take an entirely different approach and suggest that the theoretical models built around product/service brand knowledge can readily accommodate employment brands and branding without hybridizing the framework with I/O psychology. This merging of employment brand with product and service brands is accomplished simply by recognizing employment as an economic exchange between workers and employers and recognizing workers as cognitive and emotional beings that vary in their talents and have their own vectors of preferences for the employment offering. After developing a testable model of the components, antecedents, and consequences of employment brand knowledge, we review the existing employment brand and organizational attraction literature and identify multiple opportunities for additional research.