Applicant Attraction The role of recruiter function, work–life balance policies and career salience.pdf

International Journal of Selection and Assessment Volume 15 Number 4 December 2007 Applicant Attraction: The role of recruiter function, work–life balance policies and career salience Sally A. Carless and Josephine Wintle Psychology Department, Monash University, P.O. Box 197, Caulfield East, 3142 Australia. Sally.Carless@.au This study examined the impact of salient identity, career path and recruiter functional area [internal human resource (HR) personnel vs external recruitment company] on perceptions of organizational attraction with a sample of young, inexperienced job seekers. Two hundred and one participants responded to a questionnaire and rated their attraction to two different job advertisements. The results partially supported the first hypothesis; applicants perceived a job opportunity in an organization that offered either a flexible career path or a dual career path as significantly more attractive than a position in an organization that offered a traditional career path. There was no support for the second hypothesis that identity salience would interact with career path. The results showed that recruiter functional area had no impact on attraction to the organization. It was concluded that flexible HR policies increase applicants’ perceptions of organizational attraction during the initial stages of the recruitment process. Practical and research applications are discussed. 1. Introduction programs. A national survey of 527 US firms showed that organizations with a greater range of work–family In recent decades, the composition of the workforce policies had higher levels of organizational performance has changed dramatically. The number of