Employers' Recruitment Behaviour: An Empirical Analysis of the Role of Personnel Management Attitudes

Abstract

The practical importance of recruitment is witnessed by the existence of specific personnel management functions within firms. The aim of the paper is to investigate the importance of firms' personnel management attitudes for recruitment procedures. We focus on the choice of the first search channel and on the subsequent search spell. The model is empirically estimated by using a data set on recruitment behaviour of Dutch firms. The results show that personnel management considerations are important for the choice of the recruitment channel. It appears that advertisement is preferred to the informal channel in that employers believe it is faster and generates applicants who better comply with the hiring standards. Furthermore, employers turn out to prefer mainly the informal channel when recruitment costs are considered important.