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Over the past decade, the rapid evolution of social media has impacted the field of human resource management in numerous ways. In response, scholars and practitioners have sought to begin an investigation of the myriad of ways that social media impacts organizations. To date, research evidence on a range of HR-related topics are just beginning to emerge, but are scattered across a range of diverse literatures. The principal aim of this chapter is to review the current literature on the study of social media in HRM and to integrate these disparate emerging literatures. During our review, we discuss the existent research, describe the theoretical foundations of such work, and summarize key research findings and themes into a coherent social media framework relevant to HRM. Finally, we offer recommendations for future work that can enhance knowledge of social media’s impact in organizations.

There is a dearth of human resource management (HRM) literature examining the generalizability of research employing undergraduate student participants. The purpose of this study is to conduct an experiment to compare the job applicant evaluations and hiring decisions of undergraduate student participants with those of working adults with hiring experience.

This study employed a between-person 2 × 2 × 4 experimental design: participant group (undergraduate students or working adults with hiring experience) × job gender-type (male typed or female typed) × job applicant (heterosexual female, lesbian female, heterosexual male or gay male). Participants read descriptions of a job and a job applicant and then evaluated the applicant.

The results supported a moderated mediation model where participant group moderated the interaction of applicant gender and job gender-type in predicting perceptions of competence, which in turn predicted perceptions of person-job fit, likeability and respect-worthiness, which then predicted hiring decisions. Undergraduate student participants, but not working adults with hiring experience, evaluated female applicants applying for a male-typed job in a manner consistent with gender stereotypes and were less likely to hire the female applicant than the male applicant.

To inform HRM practice, research must reflect real-world decision-making. The literature on the roles of gender stereotypes and bias in hiring, and other important HRM decisions, relies heavily on undergraduate student participants. Findings of this study suggest a need to further examine whether those studies can be generalized to working adults actually making those decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of employers in creating employment gaps among women returning to the labor market after parental leaves of different durations.

The authors use a controlled correspondence field experiment that orthogonally manipulates parental leave length and the quality of fictitious female job candidates. The experiment is complemented with a survey among human resource managers.

High-quality candidates receive more interview invitations when applying after a short parental leave, while low-quality (LQ) candidates receive more interview invitations when applying after a typical three years long parental leave. Survey results suggest that the difference in invitations between short and typical leave treatments is driven by a social norm that mothers should stay home with children younger than three. Productivity gains from employing a LQ job applicant with a shorter career break might not be high enough to outweigh the adverse social norm effect.

The presented results point toward the strong effect of prevailing social norms on job search prospects of women returning to the labor market after parental leave.

A correspondence experiment has not been used before to study the relationship between time spent on leave and the labor market prospects of mothers. It also extends research on social norms to the domain of hiring decisions.

Although statistical evidence clearly demonstrates discrimination against foreign‐accented individuals in the workplace, surprisingly little research attention has been paid to how such individuals are evaluated when they apply for jobs. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the effects of applicant accent on access‐related employment decisions across four jobs that differed on job status and communication demands.

The study used a 3 (applicant accent: Standard American English, French, and Japanese) × 2 (job status: low vs high)×2 (communication demands: low vs high) mixed‐factorial design, and data from 286 college students at two different locations.

Results show that in comparison with French‐accented applicants, Japanese‐accented applicants fared worse on employment‐related decisions, especially for jobs that had high communication demands, even after controlling for applicant understandability and location. French‐accented applicants were viewed as favorably as, or more favorably than, Standard American English‐accented applicants.

Applicant accent was confounded with applicant names. Thus, it is not known whether the obtained results are due to applicant accent, names, or both.

It was found that organizations could do one of the following: use structured interviews; train interviewers on potential biases against foreign‐accented applicants; and provide more individuating information to reduce the effects of accent‐based stereotypes on employment‐related decisions.

The paper considers the communication demands of jobs and job status as influences on the evaluation of foreign‐accented applicants.

This paper investigated the interactions between gender stereotypes for jobs, applicant gender, and the communication styles used by male and female applicants during an interview. This study was conducted as a laboratory experiment, utilizing a 2x2x2 mixed design. Subjects read one job description and heard three audiotapes of all male or all female job applicants exhibiting a dominant, submissive, or neutral communication style. The subjects then rated the applicant on five dimensions. These dimensions are likeability, competence, sociability, overall impression, and hireability. Results showed significant interactions of applicant gender and communication style on four of the five dimensions rated in this study. An inspection of the dimension means revealed different effects for gender‐appropriate and gender‐inappropriate behavior for males and females. Males were penalized on ratings of overall impression and hireability for communicating in stereotypically gender‐inappropriate manners. Females were penalized on ratings of sociability and likeability for communicating in a stereotypically gender‐inappropriate fashion. The implications of these findings for using interviews are then discussed in terms of aversive genderism.

The purpose of this paper is to extend research on employer branding in the recruitment context. The authors develop a model that integrates research from employer branding, social identity theory, and person-organization fit in order to investigate the impact of company reputation and identity congruency between organizations and their job applicants on the attractiveness of an employer brand.

An online survey was conducted to test the theoretical model in a recruitment context in the Norwegian offshore industry. Structural equation modelling is employed in the data analysis.

A key finding is that a company’s reputation and identity congruence between applicants’ self-identities and their perceived organization identity affect job applicants’ job pursuit intentions through mediation of cognitive social identity. Moreover, identity congruence predicts applicants’ cognitive identification with the company.

The study suggests that managers should try to map and understand central characteristics that describe job applicants’ identities and strive to provide applicants with access to necessary information about the company to form cognitive identification with the company.

The authors extend research on employer branding by incorporating social identity and attitude as mediators between symbolic and instrumental attributes of an employer brand and its attractiveness. This study also deepens research on social identity by including explicitly a comparison process between applicants’ self-identities and their perceived organizational identity, which leads to applicants’ identification with the company.

This paper has three purposes. First, it aims to explore important factors in the Chinese employment market. Second, it aims to find whether recruiters and applicants understand each other's expectations. Third, it aims to find whether applicants with different Hukou (locals vs non‐locals) have different expectations on position/organization characteristics and whether recruiters from organizations of different ownerships (foreign vs state‐owned) have different expectations on applicant qualifications.

A list of 15 applicant qualifications items and 15 position/organization characteristics items that are relevant in the Chinese context were generated by interviewing ten applicants and recruiters. Then 141 college graduates and 44 recruiters were surveyed in four job fairs in Beijing, and asked them to rank the importance of position/organization characteristics and applicant qualifications.

The study found that recruiters overestimated applicants' expectations on extrinsic rewards (e.g. salary) but underestimated their needs on intrinsic rewards (e.g. job security). Applicants overestimated recruiters' expectations on exogenous qualifications (e.g. local Hukou) but underestimated their expectations on endogenous qualifications (e.g. analysis skills). Local applicants have higher expectations on job locations and voice opportunities while non‐local applicants have higher expectations on local Hukou quota. Recruiters from foreign organizations have higher expectations on endogenous qualifications than recruiters from state‐owned organizations.

The applicant samples were college graduates in Beijing, and the findings may not be generalized to the whole job applicant population in China.

This paper represents an early attempt to investigate both recruiters' and job applicants' expectations at the pre‐employment stage in the contemporary Chinese context, and it provides practical suggestions to recruiters, students, and policy makers.

The aim of this paper was to assess the main and interactive effects of job applicant conscientiousness, and nurturing job demands on ratings of overweight female applicants on job suitability and a hiring recommendation. It also examined relations between rater ethnicity and ratings of the job suitability of normal and overweight applicants.

The study used a 2×2×2 experimental design and data from 400 individuals (201 Anglos and 199 Hispanics) with hiring experience to test the study's hypotheses. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions, and asked to review a resume and picture of a normal or overweight applicant. Then, they were asked to rate the applicant's job suitability and make a hiring recommendation.

The results revealed that: overweight female applicants were rated as more suitable for jobs and more likely to be recommended for hire when they had high rather than low conscientiousness; Hispanics were more likely to recommend overweight applicants for hire than Anglos; and there was a three-way interaction among applicant weight, rater ethnicity, and nurturing job demands for the hiring recommendation criterion.

The study was conducted in a simulated hiring context. Thus, research is needed to determine if the results generalize to actual work settings.

The results suggest that organizations should provide decision makers with detailed information about applicants' conscientiousness, and the nurturing demands of jobs. When these types of information are presented, raters are less likely to display weight-based bias.

Previous research on weight-based bias was not based on a theoretical model, but the present study used a theoretical framework to guide the development of hypotheses (Stone and Colella, 1996; Stone et al., 1992). In addition, it is the first study to examine the effects of overweight applicant conscientiousness and stereotype-job fit on ratings of job suitability, and differences between Hispanic and Anglo views of overweight applicants.

This study aims to examine the impact of applicant weight and sex, job type and employer attitudes on employee screening decisions.

Participants rated one of four job applicants on their hiring suitability for four different entry‐level jobs with high or low visibility and physical demands. Applicants varied in sex and weight as depicted in a photograph, but their job applications were identical.

Results showed that overweight women experienced weight discrimination when applying for a job that was high in both visibility and physical demands.

Future research should examine weight discrimination in other racial and ethnic groups and with higher‐level jobs. Future research could also examine hiring decisions using a within‐subjects design to allow comparison across job applicants.

Employers' perceptions of applicant weight may lead them to make biased decisions about individuals who are overweight during the hiring process particularly for jobs that are high in visibility and physical demands.

There has been an alarming increase in obesity rates in the USA, but there is limited legal protection against weight discrimination. Employers who make stereotyped assumptions about individuals who are overweight may be missing out on valuable workforce talent. Similarly, individuals who are overweight may face discriminatory obstacles in finding work.

This study systematically manipulated two important job characteristics: visibility and physical demands and used a sample of adults as raters.

Despite studies claiming gender inclusion is beneficial for organizations, the under-representation of females in the workforce is a reality. As recruitment practices impact employees' entry into organizations, examining the salient predictors of job pursuit intention might foster gender inclusivity.

Based on a mixed-method study conducted in two phases (Phase 1: a sample of 2,084 professionals; Phase 2: interviews of 20 senior human resource (HR) professionals and interviews with 26 women professionals), we examine the key predictors of job pursuit intention of women. We employed a qualitative study as Phase 2 employed a qualitative study to understand why some of the proposed hypotheses were not supported.

We found that work–life balance, perceived job security and perceived ethical behavior of organizations were more important for female than the male applicants in influencing their job pursuit intention. Also, the type of work and person–organization (P–O) fit were found to be equally important for both the gender groups. The implications of the study to theory and practice were discussed.

Our study extends the existing literature by identifying salient factors (such as work–life balance, perceived job security and ethical citizenship) that are found to be more important for female applicants compared to their male counterparts while pursuing a job. Also, females were found to worry more about losing or not finding a job than males. Our results further indicate that type of work and P–O fit have a significant effect on job pursuit intention for both male and female applicants. The study addresses the need for research on targeted recruitment to increase gender inclusion.

The contribution of this paper lies in identifying critical factors relevant to the female applicants in India who potentially constitute a large talent pool waiting to be leveraged. It adds to the body of knowledge on enabling inclusivity and affirmative action for increasing gender diversity through recruitment. By highlighting the factors that should be given prominence in job promotions to attract more female candidates and emphasizing the gender-focused HR policies and practices and through internal and external communication, it helps practitioners attract and retain female applicants in an emerging economy like India.

Our study contributes in three ways. First, it attempts to plug the gap by investigating gendered preferences in job pursuit intentions between male and female applicants, especially in different cultural environments and in emerging markets such as India. Second, existing studies on job pursuit intentions were based mostly on inputs from student respondents. Our study has collected data from professionals working in organizations who have worked and experienced gender-related HR practices in organizations. Third, our study used a mixed-method approach to get a nuanced understanding of female talent expectations and preferences during the job-seeking behavior.