Improving Recruiting Effectiveness for Innovative Startups: The Importance of Job Advertisement Wording
Improving Recruiting Effectiveness for Innovative Startups: The Importance of Job Advertisement Wording

Summary/Abstract: Successful entrepreneurship often requires innovative employees. Attracting this type of employee is therefore critical to the success of many new ventures. Signaling theory suggests that job advertisement wording signals job seekers about key organizational characteristics. Recruitment signals about a new organization’s innovative culture and desire for innovative employees may influence perceptions of organizational prestige and interact with job seekers’ learning (LGO) and performance goal orientations (PGO) to influence attraction and job pursuit intentions. A sample of 332 actual job seekers is used to test the model using both hierarchical regression and nonlinear bootstrapping analyses. Results show that innovative new business ventures are perceived as more prestigious and that individuals higher in LGO are more attracted to a new small organization seeking creative and innovative rather than hard working and dedicated employees. Individuals higher in PGO were generally attracted to both types of new business ventures but those at the highest levels of PGO were less attracted to innovative ventures.

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