...potential applicants and encourage them apply. The purpose of this study was to examine the variables that influence attention to advertisements and the intention to apply for advertised positions among final-year commerce students. A quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate the relative impact of three factors in a recruitment advertisement: the use of the word graduate in the heading, the use of pictures in the advertisement, and the mention of a career path or opportunities for development and promotion. The results highlight the importance of a heading with the word graduate and support a proposed three-step model for designing a recruitment advertisement.

Keywords: recruitment advertisements; graduating students; potential employment applicants; pictures or graphics; heading; career path

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What appears in the advertisement should assist rather than hinder the applicant in deciding whether or not he or she is interested in joining the organization.

--McKenna & Beech (1995)

Recruitment is critical to human resource management (HRM). Many companies boast, "Our people are our biggest asset." The success of a business ultimately relies on the type of employees who work there, which encourages businesses to attract and retain good employees. Many firms, therefore, spend millions of dollars in their efforts to recruit the best graduates. Job advertisements are an important tool in this recruitment. Usually, a recruitment advertisement is the first medium a potential employee sees before deciding on whether to apply for a job.

Much of what is said about what to include in a job advertisement focuses on the point of view of the employer and is not supported by evidence. Limited research has been conducted into what potential applicants want and how they approach job advertisements (Mathews & Redman, 1998). It is important, therefore, that a recruitment advertisement contain factors that are attractive to potential applicants. Such factors could include salary, benefits, career path, working conditions, public- or private-sector business, the name recognition of the company, and the title of the job. More research is needed into applicants' perceptions of job advertisements.

The recruitment process contains a number of steps, including corporate planning, human resource planning, job description and evaluation, and job advertisements. The present study centered on the job advertisement step.

I argue that job advertisements are a type of persuasive communication. Dessler, Griffiths, Lloyd-Walker, and Williams's (1999) concept of AIDA (attract, interest, desire, action) was used to guide a study into potential applicants' perceptions of various features of job advertisements. The study specifically looked at graduating students in commerce, a business degree in which accounting is a major, because this sector has been given little attention in HRM studies (Anderson-Gough, Grey, & Robson, 2001).

LITERATURE REVIEW

Most of the literature described here describes theories and advice relevant to recruitment advertisement. Very little empirical research on the subject has been conducted.

Petrick and Furr (1995) stated that an individual job should be designed as part of a broader organizational design, with specific tasks and duties prescribed. The HRM department, which in most large organizations has the responsibility of recruiting new employees, must be able to find the person with the right level of suitability for the job. Yet research that has been conducted has indicated that many organizations select staff members according to qualities irrelevant to successful performance on the job (Dessler et al., 1999). Selecting a recruit who is not the best person for a job leads to money being wasted on training, a decline in employees' morale, and an expensive selection mistake if it has to be rectified (Molander & Winterton, 1994). Thus, it is important to implement the best recruitment procedures possible.

Denton (1992) stated that competition teaches organizations to be aggressive recruiters and that they must use every avenue available to find the best employees. Initial attraction to an organization has been found to be related to early impressions of an organization's image as an employer (Turban, Forret, & Hendrickson, 1998). One of the most effective ways to recruit employees is to be the employer of choice (Denton, 1992). Slaughter et al. (2001) concluded that applicants are able to attribute specific traits to an organization on the basis of the organization's advertising, products and services, places of business, employees, customers, and social information. For example, applicants may favor a company that is publicly recognized as a good employer over other companies. Applicants who believe that an organization is innovative or competent may feel that this image expresses their own self-concepts and personalities and therefore will react more favorably toward that organization (Aaker, 1997, 1999; Bushman, 1993; Shavitt, 1990; Sirgy, 1982; Solomon, 1983). Lievens and Highhouse (2003) observed, "The criteria job seekers use to evaluate an organization's image may be attributes (e.g., innovative) that have symbolic meaning for them and that are held in high regard by others" (p. 96).

Barber and Roehling (1993) found that inferences about organizational characteristics can be made by readers from the information provided in a recruitment advertisement. In fact, Redman and Mathews (1995) wrote, "The readers of recruitment advertising are more sophisticated and demanding so the advertisements are becoming more difficult and complex to write" (p. 15). Research by Backhaus (2004) suggested, however, that organizations predominantly focus on their own attributes and secondarily on employee advancement. The...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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