Social Influences in Recruitment: When is word‐of‐mouth most effective?

Abstract

We apply a policy‐capturing design to examine the conditions under which word‐of‐mouth is most effective in recruitment. The effect of monetary incentives is compared to other key characteristics of word‐of‐mouth (the source, recipient, and message content) that might affect its impact on organizational attractiveness. In a first study, unemployed job seekers (N = 100) were less attracted when they knew a monetary incentive was offered to the source of positive word‐of‐mouth. Conversely, they were more attracted when word‐of‐mouth was provided by a more experienced source (employee) and by a stronger tie (friend). These findings were replicated in a second study among employed job seekers (N = 213). These results offer various implications for how recruiting organizations might make effective use of word‐of‐mouth.