Applicant Attraction Strategies: An Organizational Perspective

TLDR

Labor shortages expected to persist into the next century heighten the need for effective applicant attraction, yet existing research offers little unified theory or organizational guidance, largely focusing on applicant perspectives and dispersing attraction concepts across disparate literatures. This article aims to construct an organization‑centric model of applicant attraction that delineates three attraction strategies and identifies contingency factors influencing strategy selection. The model is derived by integrating insights from multiple literatures, outlining the three strategies, categorizing contingency factors, and proposing their interrelationships.

Abstract

Labor shortages, which are predicted to last into the next century, are expected to increase the importance of applicant attraction for organizations. Unfortunately, previous research has provided little unified theory or operational guidance for organizations that are confronted with such difficulties. In part, this is because much research has been framed from the applicant's, rather than the organization's, perspective. In addition, attraction-related theories and research are scattered across a variety of literatures, and often are identified with other topics (e.g., wage, motivation, or discrimination theories). Drawing on multiple literatures, this article develops a model of applicant attraction from the organization's perspective, which (a) outlines three strategies for enhancing applicant attraction, (b) proposes categories of contingency factors that are expected to affect the choice (and potential effectiveness) of alternative strategies, (c) suggests probable interrelationships among the strat...