Recruitment methods, recruitment outcomes and information credibility and sufficiency

Purpose Recruiters’ decision to use recruitment methods (RMs) depends on several expected outcomes such as number applications, quality of applicants, speed of filling up vacancy, post joining job performance, absenteeism, commitment and satisfaction of the applicants. RMs may vary from each other in terms of its capability to communicate different type of information. The current research aims at exploring recruiter's intention to use RMs like job advertisement (JA), online recruitment (OLR) and social media in reference to several recruitment outcomes (ROs). Further, the role of information credibility and sufficiency (ICS) on recruiter's intention to use has been studied. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 242 recruiters from the manufacturing and service sector of India. The survey instrument consists of RMs, recruitment outcome and credibility and satisfaction that are identified following the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used for a simultaneous assessment of overall and specific elements of measurement validity and reliability. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the hypothesized model. Findings The result shows that RMs significantly relates with ROs. In detail, social media recruitment (SMR) significantly relates with pre ROs and post ROs; OLR significantly relates with pre ROs and post ROs and JA significantly relates post ROs. Only JA insignificantly relates with pre ROs. The result also supports the hypothesis that ICS acts as a mediator between the influences of RMs on ROs. Research limitations/implications The result of the study has important theoretical and managerial implications. The theoretical implication is explained from the perspective of signaling theory (ST) and elaboration likelihood model (ELM) theory. Originality/value The study is unique as multiple RMs have been studied with reference to both pre and post ROs using the data collected from the recruiters.