Who Will We Recruit? Targeting Deep- and Surface-Level Diversity with Human Resource Policy Advertising

Wendy J. Casper, Julie Holliday Wayne, Jennifer Grace Manegold

Human Resource Management · 2013 · Volume 52 · Issue 3

Abstract

Research on targeted recruitment has focused on targeting applicants with surface-level attributes such as underrepresented demographic groups. The present study extends targeted recruitment research by examining how advertising human resource policies might be useful for targeting both surface- and deep-level attributes. Specifically, the current study uses an experimental design to examine the impact of work-family, diversity, and employee development policies on the job-pursuit intentions of working adults in the United States. We examined surface- (demographic characteristics; e.g., race) and deep-level differences (attitudes or values; e.g., diversity values) as predictors of whether participants intend to pursue jobs with firms advertising these human resource (HR) policies. Deep-level differences consistently predicted job-pursuit intentions for all three HR policies, but only marginal support was obtained for surface-level variables as predictors. Findings suggest that targeted recruitment based on deep-level attributes may be more successful than targeted recruitment based on surface-level factors.

Keywords

human resource policy, organizational attraction, recruitment, values, diversity

Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.