Abstract

Finding the right employees for any organization requires an intricate combination of systems working in tandem. You need effective systems to first attract a suitable and substantial pool of applicants. You need to screen and select the most appropriate candidates, and ultimately you need to convince those selected to accept the job offer (Barber, 1998; Rynes, 1989). Despite the interdependence of these systems, much of the literature on staffing organizations focuses on screening and selection, with far less attention being paid to the attraction functions. If an organization fails to attract sufficient quantities of candidates with the right qualities, the selection system will not be effective regardless of its sophistication (Boudreau & Rynes, 1985). In this chapter, we will focus on the front end of this series of systems – specifically, systems, processes, and strategies that are designed to maximize the size and quality of the applicant pool. Although our focus is on applicant attraction, many of these processes spillover into actual job choice, as the early impressions formed in the attraction stage tend to carry over into the job choice stage (Rynes, Bretz, & Gerhart, 1991). This makes the messages and strategies employed in the attraction stage all the more important.