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The increased popularity in using online social networks by recruiters has received much positive attention, particularly in the popular press. Using social network theory this paper aims to examine how the structure and governance mechanisms of these networks can assist this process. The authors ask: how do recruiters use online social networks to effectively attract and screen prospective job applicants?

The semi‐structured interview approach is used to gather data from 25 recruitment specialists.

The connector role is identified as a specific attraction mechanism recruiters use to create numerous weak ties, where some are so weak they barely constitute ties at all. The authors then identify branding, transparency and data specificity as three mechanisms recruiters use to strengthen these ties when performing the attracting and screening functions.

This is the first paper to analyse online recruitment, using social network theory, and hence it has important implications for both academic and practitioner audiences involved in recruitment.

Strategic Management.

Master of Business Administration/Executive Program in Management Level.

Rajat Malik started eFin Recruiters in January 2015 an RPO firm solely catering to the finance domain. Positioning eFin Recruiters in a niche domain created serious challenges to be tackled. Rajat was contemplating leveraging the Indian Government’s Startup India campaign launched on January 16, 2016 to his advantage to scale up eFin Recruiters’ operations by 400 per cent and compete with large established players in the RPO industry. Complacency and anticipated retaliatory action by competitors against eFin Recruiters’ positioning in the niche domain were a huge impediment in eFin Recruiters’ path to exponential growth.

This case will enable students to understand the concepts of industry analysis, strategic positioning from the view of an entrepreneurial firm and business level strategy. This case acts as a medium to integrate entrepreneurship and strategy which is of utmost relevance.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS: 11: Strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the effects of recruiter friendliness and both verifiable and non-verifiable job attributes in the recruitment process.

In total, 498 participants watched a videoed simulation of a recruitment interview and completed a questionnaire. Three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the interaction and main effect hypotheses.

Applicant reactions were more favorable with a friendly recruiter. The more favorable the verifiable job attribute information (JAI), the more favorable the applicant reactions were to the employment opportunity. Compared to applicants who received negative or no non-verifiable JAI, applicants who received positive or mixed non-verifiable JAI were more attracted to the recruiter, perceived the employment opportunity as more desirable, and were more willing to pursue the employment opportunity. Reactions were most favorable in the positive non-verifiable JAI condition, less favorable in the mixed condition, and least favorable in the negative condition. Surprisingly, the “no information” mean was above the negative information condition.

This fully crossed 2 × 3 × 4 experiment simultaneously examined 2 levels of recruiter friendliness, 3 levels of verifiable job attributes and 4 levels of non-verifiable job attributes. The five dependent variables were attraction to the recruiter, attraction to the employment opportunity, willingness to pursue the employment opportunity, the perceived probability of receiving a job offer and the number of positive inferences made about unknown organizational characteristics. Previous research examining the effects of employment inducements and job attributes were conducted in field settings where it is difficult to control the amount and favorability of JAI applicants receive.

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) enable recruiters and job candidates to conduct and review employment interviews at different points in time, promising improved cost and time efficiencies for all users. This research aims to investigate the implementation and normalization process of AVI in the hospitality industry with the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and the normalization process theory (NPT) providing theoretical support.

Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with hiring managers from three different hospitality companies, which were in different stages of the implementation process. The data have been recorded, transcribed and coded according to the UTAUT and NPT constructs, revealing emergent themes.

Five overarching themes emerged: AVI effort and efficiency expectation; augmentation to the interview process; challenges for the applicant; challenges for the recruiter; and issues with applicant interviewing aesthetics. Additional coding and analysis with NPT identified the following in terms of evaluation of the implementation process: participants’ implementation activities showed a tendency to emanate from cognitive participation (relationship work), leading to coherence (sense-making work), followed by collective action (enactment of work/operational work) and finally reflexive monitoring (appraisal work).

Findings from this research include recommendations for the best practices integrating AVI into the hospitality employee selection process.

Given the increased demands on the recruitment and selection of talent in the hospitality industry, several organizations have turned to mechanized HR software platforms. The impact of interview modalities and particularly AVI has received limited research attention, thus this study expanded this new stream of literature. Furthermore, this research is among a nascent stream using NPT to evaluate the implementation and normalization of this new technology.

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.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This research paper focuses on the relationship between a recruiter's level of political skill and an organization's reputation when measuring the success of an organization's recruitment efforts. The findings confirm that high levels of political skill in recruiters delivers value to organizations with both good and bad reputations. This is because when a recruiter with high political skill is involved any increases in organizational reputation – in part through the recruiter's own efforts to boost the organization's brand – causes the candidate to become more strongly attracted. However this effect doesn't happen when a low political skill recruiter is involved.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Researchers have identified various recruiter and organization characteristics that individually influence staffing effectiveness. In extending contemporary research, the purpose of this paper is to address a straightforward question unexamined in previous research, namely, does recruiter political skill interact with organization reputation to influence applicant attraction in the recruitment process? Specifically, the authors hypothesized that for recruiters high in political skill, as organization reputation increases, applicant attraction to the organization increases. Alternatively, for recruiters low in political skill, as organization reputation increases, there is no change in applicant attraction to the organization.

Three studies were conducted to create the experimental manipulation materials, pilot test them and then conduct tests of the hypotheses. Study 1 created and tested the content validity of the recruiter political skill script. Study 2 reported on the effectiveness of the recruiter political skill experimental manipulation, whereby a male actor was hired to play the part of a recruiter high in political skill and one low in political skill. Finally, Study 3 was the primary hypothesis testing investigation.

Results from a 2×2 between-subjects experimental study (N=576) supported the hypotheses. Specifically, high recruiter political skill and favorable organization reputation each demonstrated significant main effects on applicant attraction to the organization. Additionally, the authors hypothesized, and confirmed, a significant organization reputation × recruiter political skill interaction. Specifically, findings demonstrated that increases in organization reputation resulted in increased applicant attraction to the organization for those exposed to a recruiter high in political skill. However, the effect was not for a recruiter low in political skill.

Despite the single source nature of data collections, the authors took steps to minimize potential biasing factors (e.g. time separation, including affectivity). Future research will benefit from gathering multiple sources of data. In addition, no experimental research to date exists, examining political skill in a laboratory context. This finding has important implications for the growing research base on political skill in organizations.

First impressions are lasting impressions, and it is very costly to organizations when recruiters lose good candidates due to the failure to make a memorable and favorable impression. This paper supports the use of political skill in the recruitment process and highlights its capability to influence and attract job applicants to organizations successfully.

Despite its scientific and practical appeal, the causal effects of political skill on important work outcomes in an experimental setting have not been formally investigated. As the first experimental investigation of political skill, the authors can see more clearly and precisely what political skill behaviors of recruiters tend to influence applicant attraction to organizations in the recruitment process.

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.

To introduce a model which examines the relationship between recruiters’ perceptions of image and the stigma of image norms.

This paper examines the influence of image norms on recruiters’ perceptions of applicants during interviews and explores the manner in which recruiters may stigmatize applicants. A model is presented which explores how image norms may be used to stigmatize applicants and affect recruiters’ decisions.

Image norms are found to have an influence on recruiters’ evaluations of applicants during the interview process.

Empirical tests of the model are suggested to illustrate how image norm violations lead to stigmatization during the recruitment process.

Applicants who are denied entry into organizations on the basis of their appearance or image, experience a subtle, yet unacceptable form of employment discrimination. Organizations need to ensure that they are not excluding potential employees who do not meet the image norm expectations of recruiters. Organizations need to make sure that the image norms used to evaluate applicants are not a proxy for discrimination based on protected characteristics.

This paper looks at image, a broader construct than physical attractiveness, to ensure equal opportunities for everyone. This is the first paper to consider the discriminatory effects of image in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether an outsourced recruitment service can provide a satisfactory organisational solution from the perspective of its line-managers.

The study is based on a single, large organisation involving dissemination of an on-line survey targeting line-managers with a recent record of hiring new employees. Using quantitative analysis including correlation, multiple regression and binary logistic regression, assessment is made regarding manager perception, including experience as customers, overall rating of the recruiter and a willingness to recommend the service.

Aspects of standard service, assessed in terms of operations and recruiter provision, are perceived as being at appropriately high levels, while the arguably more demanding external aspects of the recruitment process are perceived to be less successful. Line-manager satisfaction as customers and satisfaction with the recruiter are explained by various experiences of both service and recruiter, while willingness to recommend is explained in terms of customer satisfaction, satisfaction with the recruiter and recognition that the service provides added value. Personal line-manager experiences, perceived realisation of organisational values or achieving preferred line-manager recruitment objectives play no significant part in these explanations.

The research considered an individual organisation, with participating managers being solely from within. Further research could see the assessment being extended to other organisations perhaps at different points of maturity in their relationships with an external recruitment partner, as well as revisiting the participating organisation at a later point in time to assess potential changes in the relationships assessed.

To enhance line-manager satisfaction with service and with the recruiter, aspects of process and recruiter contribution both play a role, while these satisfaction indicators, in tandem with an appreciation of added value will prompt a line-manager to ultimately recommend such a service.

This centres on the assessment of an outsourced recruitment service from the particular perspective of its hiring line-managers, through evaluation of service satisfaction and willingness to recommend.