This document provides a literature review and theoretical framework for a master's thesis examining the use of social media for recruitment. It discusses theories of attitude, perception, the online environment, person-environment fit, uncertainty reduction, signaling, and media richness as they relate to recruitment. The research question focuses on the role of informational content, attractiveness, and the social media platform itself. Recommendations are made regarding providing informative content, increasing attractiveness, and leveraging richer media to improve recruitment outcomes.
1. BY
SHERVIN AZADPOUR
SUPERVISOR:PROF. DR. MICHAEL B. HINNER
FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
TU BERGAKADEMIE FREIBERG
JULY 2015
Master Thesis
Using Social Media for
Recruitment
4. Research Question
The role of informational content, attractiveness,
and the social media itself.
5. Method
Literature Review
Theories:
Attitude
Perception
Psychology of Online environment
Organizational Attraction and Behavioral Action
Perception of P-E Fit
ELM of Persuasion
Signaling Theory and URT
MRT
6. • A T T I T U D E A N D P E R C E P T I O N I N O N L I N E
E N V I R O N M E N T
• E L A B O R A T I O N L I K E L I H O O D M O D E L
• U N C E R T A I N T Y R E D U C T I O N T H E O R Y
• P E R S O N - O R G A N I Z A T I O N F I T P E R C E P T I O N
• M E D I A R I C H N E S S T H E O R Y
Theoretical Framework
13. Uncertainty Reduction Theory
URT in short
The third axiom of URT
Extractive information seeking and social media
Importance of URT in e-recruitment
15. • M E D I A R I C H N E S S T H E O R Y
• W E B 2 . 0
• S O C I A L M E D I A
• P R O F E S S I O N A L S O C I A L N E T W O R K S
Social Media Recruitment
16. Media Richness Theory
Communication effectiveness and requirements
Ambiguity Reduction
Rich media, attitude, and persuasion
17. Web 2.0 and Social Media
Web 2.0
Social Media
Web logs
Micro-blogs (e.g., Twitter)
Picture sharing (e.g., Flicker)
Video sharing (e.g., YouTube)
Networks
Social network site (SNS)
19. • I N F O R M A T I O N A L C O N T E N T
• A T T R A C T I V E N E S S
• M E D I A R I C H N E S S
Recommendations
20. Informational Content
What kinds of information?
Information presentation
Navigation
ELM, comprehension, ability and MODE
URT
P-E fit judgment: informed decision
Searchability
Amount of information
Link to other profiles
21. Attractiveness
Consumers’ beliefs and attitudes
Online recruitment studies
P-O fit and organizational culture
Signaling theory
Broader applicant pool
Quality of applicants
Attractive banner
PROFIT physical, relational, organizational, financial, intellectual/human, and technological resources (Morris, 2001)
War of Talent: HR function, Attract qualified talent, encourage them to pursue employment with an organization , Recruitment channels: career exhibitions, head hunting, advertisement etc.,
Online Recruitment: Purposes: form an applicant pool; emit positive signals; provide applicants with information
- Topic: internship, Social media recruitment campaign. Research result: Guidelines, best practices, no academic explanation
Attitudes towards organization’s recruitment website affect the jobseekers’ attraction to the employer Cober et al (2003)
Research in the field of recruitment, applicant reaction, and job choice indicate the importance of organizational perceptions due to their effect on applicants’ decision to pursue a job opportunity and joining the organization (Bretz, Jr., Robert D., Rynes, & Gerhart, 1993)
Organizational Attraction and Behavioral Action: model to explain the psychology of attraction and decision making in the online recruitment process
-Signaling theory and URT explain the job application behavior under uncertainty.
Attitude is an evaluative judgment that summarizes the cognitive/affective reaction related to an object (Hollan et al, 2003; Petty et al, 2004)
Attitudes towards organization’s recruitment website affect the jobseekers’ attraction to the employer Cober et al (2003)
Persuasion: Persuasion is an “attitude change resulting from exposure to information from others. Such exposure typically occurs via written or spoken messages, delivered by a source to a recipient” (Olson and Zanna, 1993, p. 135), .
In business context persuasion receives a significant attention as a systematic process designed to altering an individual’s (or a group of individuals’) behavior or attitude toward an object, idea or event, by transmitting a message that can be included information, reasoning, feeling, or a mixture of them (Seiter, 2010).
If recipients are not able or not motivated to do an effortful elaboration process on the message, they will use auxiliary features as shortcut to form an attitudinal response. Those features called heuristics (e.g., my brother is always right) or peripheral cues (e.g., appearance of website).
**Attitudes that form resulting from a careful analysis of a message are more likely to ample behavior (Crano & Prislin, 2006).
Attitude and behavior: attitudes influence behaviors (Olson & Zanna, 1993).
behavior might be influenced through the following two steps. 1) After presenting a message, if it processed successfully, it will drive the recipient’s attitude towards the planned position. 2) The influenced attitude may influence the behavior (Olson & Zanna, 1993).
ELM describes how attitudes form and change resulting from how individuals process information (Jones, Shultz, & Chapman, 2006).
the model suggests that the persuasiveness of a message is mainly affected by the motivation and ability of the message recipient to think carefully about the subject-related arguments. So that, a high level of elaboration likelihood (EL) can be reached when a person has both ability to process argument relevant information, and enough motivation to elaboration the message (Bhattacherjee & Sanford, 2006).
Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann (1983) suggest that either one or both of the following cognitive routes are responsible for advertisement effectiveness:
Central route to persuasion: involves effortful cognitive activity, when the presented data (message content) motivates the message receiver to evaluate data (e.g., strength of the argument). In this case EL is high.
Peripheral route to persuasion: when individuals use non-content elements associated with the message as a basis for attitude formation (e.g., the website design and aesthetics, number of message arguments). In this case EL is low.
Whether one follows peripheral or central route to persuasion, depends upon one‟s ability and motivation to process received information
Motivation to processing can be enhanced by factors like individual‟s cognitive demand, number of information sources, and perceived personal relevance. Likewise, high message comprehensibility, message repetition, and low levels of external distraction are factors that enhance the ability
Perception
Chera mohemme?
Research in the field of recruitment, applicant reaction, and job choice indicate the importance of organizational perceptions due to their effect on applicants‟ decision to pursue a job opportunity and joining the organization
*** Regarding the online recruitment, Williamson, Lepak, and King (2003) suggest that characteristics of recruitment website also influence an applicant’s perception of organizational attraction.
Perception: The process of producing a meaningful experience of the world, by interpreting and organizing sensations (Lindsay & Norman, 2013).
That is, in confronting with a stimuli or situation individuals interpret that stimulus into something which is known or meaningful for them based on their prior experience, learning, memories, expectation, and attention. Thus, our interpretation or perception can be different from other’s perception, due to different prior experiences, or from reality (Pickens, 2005).
Attitude and behavior
MODE (Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants of the attitude - behavior relation) model “aims to describe the multiple processes by which attitudes can affect judgments and behavior” (Fazio, 2013, p.1). MODE model argues that when a highly motivated individual has both opportunity and motivation to think deliberately about an attitude object, his/her attitude will influence his/her behavior
Attitude formation–behavioral action job search sequence (Maurer & Cook, 2011): attitudes toward a hiring organization is influenced by perception of recruitment website. ). The intention to pursue a job opportunity is also influenced by that perception. That is, during the first stage of processing website characteristics (e.g., attractiveness, navigation, etc.) form the applicant’s attitude toward the job and organization. The applicant’s intention to apply for a job increases or decreases according to his/her attitudinal response. Thus, online recruitment media, through an attitude formation and behavioral action, influence job seekers‟ application behavior (Maurer & Cook, 2011).
Since online environments have different features as well as alternative ways for conveying quality than physical locations, measuring and conceptualizing the perceived quality of websites is different from physical environments (Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2003).
Aladwani and Palvia (2002), considering the users‟ affective and cognitive responses, define user‟s perceived website quality as “users‟ evaluation of a website‟s features meeting their needs and reflecting overall excellence of the website.”
website‟s content quality (CQ), technical quality (TQ), design (DES) and usability (UA)
"Stimulus" in an online environment: web site information, usability/navigation, and attractiveness (Cober et al., 2003)
- Person-environment fit (P-E fit) the degree to which individual and environmental characteristics match
- P-O fit as: "the compatibility between people and organizations
person-job (P-J) fit refers to compatibility between job demands and a person‟s knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs)
One of the main theories in organizational psychology
is a theoretical mechanism that looks into the initial interaction between individuals prior to the actual communication process and explains how people obtain and process information about their interpersonal relationships, to reduce uncertainty
The third axiom of URT says “high levels of uncertainty cause increases in in formation seeking behavior. As uncertainty levels decline, information seeking behavior decreases” (Berger & Calabrese, 1975, p. 103).
According to URT, when an individual encounters a new relationship intends to reduce uncertainty via passive, active, or interactive information-seeking strategies
Extractive information seeking, “draws upon a vast storehouse of written comments generated by targets,” (Ramirez, Walther, Burgoon, & Sunnafrank, 2002, p.220) In particular, social networks are important online information storehouses and full of uncertainty-reducing information.
***According to Dineen, Ash, and Noe (2002b), the primary reason of job seekers to visit an organization’s website, as the starting point of collecting information, is to reducing uncertainty about the hiring organization and/or the job.
According to signaling theory “when an individual does not have complete data, or is uncertain about a position she or he should take on a matter, she or he draws inferences based on cues from whatever information available” (Braddy et al., 2008, p. 2293).
Signaling theory, when applied to the context of online recruitment, suggests that an applicant who has limited information about an employer draws inferences about the employer based on peripheral cues gained from their organizational website (Braddy et al., 2008).
**This occurs because job seekers perceive the website characteristics as representative of the entire organization (Rynes et al., 1991).
Communication effectiveness: depends on the match between communication requirements and the capacities of media
A rich media is firstly able to solve the problem of ambiguity by providing larger amount of factual information that allows the receiver to verify its accuracy and resolve ambiguities.
According to Keller and Block (1997) attitude are likely to be stronger affected, when a vivid persuasive information is transmitted using colorful images, graphics, pictures, or emotionally stimulating information. Consequently, a rich media which is capable of transmitting more fact-oriented information accompanied by image, video, and other visual elements is likely to be more persuasive (Ajzen, 2001).
- Web 2.0 includes a series of technological innovations that enable users to generate content, interaction, and interoperability.
The media that conveys that content is the social media
Social networking services that through them individuals can send and receive short messages categorized as micro-blogs.
Picture-sharing and video-sharing websites enable users to upload and share their own pictures and videos
Those services that enable users to find contacts and add them are networks.
SNS: “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.
Professional social networking sites are those that instead of more entertaining atmosphere of other social networks (e.g., Facebook) are focused on business-based relationships and interactions (e.g., LinedIn).
These sites are used to establish and maintain contacts by business individuals. Also, employees can get ahead in career and companies can fill their job vacancies.
Moreover, these sites‟ search engines enable job seekers to advance search for jobs with specific characteristics, such as location, industry, type of contract, function, and the employer
SNSs provide recruiters with an unprecedentedly large and diverse talent pool
providing specific and detailed information have been studied by Cable & Judge (1994) and they found positive effects of this on recruitment outcomes as it enables applicants to make more informed decision due to an accurate fit judgment
clear information more influence the attitudinal judgments
Such information can include information related to organizational image, the level of pay and benefits, the location of the work, required communications, training opportunities, required job skills for a job position, and corporate social performance (CSP) policies
URT: according to the sixth and seventh axioms of URT perceived similarity between two parties results in increased “liking” among them. By extension, when reviewing the information provided on organization's profile, applicants who perceive similarity in organization's values may be more attracted and more “like” the employer.
P-E fit: The influence of informational content on applicants‟ P-O fit perception and intention to apply for a job is more than other factors
ELM: high message comprehensibility=> higher Motivation => MODE: attitude influences behavior=> application intention
ELM easy to understand, data based
Amount: On one hand in the absence of job and organization information, job seekers form attitudes based on the peripheral cues .. report an increase in organizational attraction when the perception of amount of information content increases but On the other hand, overwhelming a job seeker with too much information leads to more reliance on simple heuristics
Studies in the field of consumer behavior indicated that consumers‟ beliefs and attitudes are effected by visual characteristics of advertisements
found that attitudes and intentions towards products are affected by pictures in advertisements regardless of the level of the viewer‟s involvement.
In online recruitment area likewise, research has shown that aesthetic features, which make a website more attractive for applicants, is positively related with their intentions to pursue the job increase attraction to the hiring organization (Highhouse et al. 2002), generate interest in the advertised job position (Redman & Mathews, 1992), and increase job seekers‟ willingness to recommend this hiring organization to a friend (Cober et al., 2003),
Dineen, Ling, Ash, and DelVecchio (2007) found that providing information on a website that designed by aesthetic features results a higher attraction among highly fitting individuals.
found that website features like recruitment page, testimonials, and pictures which convey various organizational cultures can affect applicants‟ P-O fit perception and attraction to organization.
As media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1986) suggests in order to communicate potentially ambiguous information (e.g., values, culture, and social identity) it is better to deploy richer media
when vivid persuasive message is transmitted using colorful images, graphics, and pictures it is likely to affect the attitude stronger
Moreover, this provides job seekers with more realistic image of organizational culture and advertised job vacancies using multimedia channels help applicants to form a more realistic P-E fit perception and ultimately a more informative job choice decision. In other words, providing an image of entire organization and job characteristics via a vivid source meets the applicants‟ need to experience a job to decide its merits
use the multimedia channels in SNSs, such as picture, audio, and video that engage various perceptual channels (e.g., visual and auditory channels), to transmit the ambiguous information. In this regard organizations can produce video clips, pictures, etc. that present their organizational culture and after uploading them on organization‟s profile on picture/video sharing websites (e.g., YouTube, Instagram, Flicker) provide a link to that information on the organization‟s professional SNS profile.
