Using company web sites to e-recruit qualified applicants: A job marketing based review of theory-based research

In their rapidly expanding attempts to use company web sites to e-recruit job applicants in a world-wide labor market, employers have often found their hiring systems to be unexpectedly overwhelmed by large numbers of applications from poorly qualified individuals. To both limit and understand this phenomenon, this article employs a job marketing perspective to organize and review contemporary theory-based studies of the effects of web site recruiting sources on job seeker attitudes and employment application behaviors. To accomplish this task, recruiting research based on theoretical elements of Realistic Job Previews (RJPs), Person-Organization (P-O) Fit, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and signaling theory is examined in terms of its implications for the ability of companies to e-recruit high quality job applicants. Overall, results of this analysis reveal that each of these theoretical areas offer useful insights but that considerably more theory-based research is needed to assess the effect of e-recruiting sources on the attitudes and decisions of highly qualified job seekers actively engaged in the job search process.