Recruitment Message Specificity and Organizational Attractiveness: TheModerating Effect of the Sensing-Intuition Personality Traits

Abstract

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Whether a more specific recruitment message can make an organization a more attractive employer in the eyes of job seekers has been an interesting topic in previous research. However, the inconsistent results of the initial studies leave room for further investigation. Inspired by the existing research gap and the current issue of talent shortage around the world, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between recruitment message specificity and perceived organizational attractiveness by using one of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators, the Sensing-Intuition (S-I) personality traits, as the moderating factor. Since S-I traits reflect the difference in people’s preferences to collect information, the researcher proposed that this can be a potential reason for inconsistent results in previous research. In this study, a scenario-based experiment was conducted by adopting the fictitious recruitment messages designed by Roberson et al. (2005), examining whether a more specific recruitment message would lead to higher degrees of perceived organizational attractiveness and if there was a difference in perceptions between the sensing and the intuitive people. The results revealed that when the recruitment message is more specific, the intuitive job seekers reflected a stronger enhancement in perceived organizational attractiveness compared to the sensing job seekers, who may need further resources to sense an organization’s attractiveness level. The findings provide insights for improving the design of attractive recruitment messages in the labor market.