Recruitment sources and organizational attraction: a field study of Belgian nurses

Previous research on recruitment sources has mostly focused on post-hire instead of pre-hire outcomes and has typically applied a very rudimentary classification of sources on the basis of the formal-informal distinction. The present study relied on a theory-driven taxonomy to identify four major types of recruitment sources (recruitment advertising, recruitment events, publicity, and word-of-mouth) and applied a source credibility perspective to predict differential relationships of these sources with organizational attractiveness. In a sample of 184 job seeking nurses in Belgium, characterized by a high labor market demand, it was found that job seekers who spent more time on receiving employment information through experiential recruitment sources such as events and word-of-mouth perceived this information as more credible. In addition, job seekers’ exposure to word-of-mouth was strongly positively related to their attraction to organizations as an employer. This relationship was partially mediated by the perceived credibility of the received employment information. Therefore, the results of this field study suggest that to enhance their attractiveness as an employer for job seekers, especially those in high demand on the labor market, recruiting organizations should provide credible employment information and stimulate the use of word-of-mouth as a recruitment source.Previous research on recruitment sources has mostly focused on post-hire instead of pre-hire outcomes and has typically applied a very rudimentary classification of sources on the basis of the formal-informal distinction. The present study relied on a theory-driven taxonomy to identify four major types of recruitment sources (recruitment advertising, recruitment events, publicity, and word-of-mouth) and applied a source credibility perspective to predict differential relationships of these sources with organizational attractiveness. In a sample of 184 job seeking nurses in Belgium, characterized by a high labor market demand, it was found that job seekers who spent more time on receiving employment information through experiential recruitment sources such as events and word-of-mouth perceived this information as more credible. In addition, job seekers’ exposure to word-of-mouth was strongly positively related to their attraction to organizations as an employer. This relationship was partially mediated by the perceived credibility of the received employment information. Therefore, the results of this field study suggest that to enhance their attractiveness as an employer for job seekers, especially those in high demand on the labor market, recruiting organizations should provide credible employment information and stimulate the use of word-of-mouth as a recruitment source.A