Attractive Job Advertisements? Potential Discrepancies between Managers’ Predictions and Preferences of Nursing Recruits

Background: Job advertisements signal employer value propositions (EVPs) that affect the interest in a job. Such job ads are designed by managers in public health organizations. But do managers who design those job ads actually know which EVPs are more or less preferred by nursing recruits? Research questions: To which extent are there discrepancies between the predictions of managers and the perceived attractiveness of employment attributes for recruits? What is the relative importance of six different EVPs (instrumental attributes: salary, job security, and challenging tasks; symbolic attributes: social support of colleagues, societal impact, and beneficiary contact) in terms of perceived preference of a nursing job? Method: Two conjoint experiments were conducted with 503 Danish nursing students, who represent the recruit pool on the job market, and 103 managers from public health organizations with recruitment responsibilities. Marginal means analyses are presented. Results: The results show some discrepancies between managers and recruits. For recruits, some of the preferred propositions are more symbolic, such as daily patient contact or high social support. In contrast, managers may overestimate the relative importance of some instrumental propositions, such as low salary or temporary position. Conclusion: The study results suggest that nurse managers may not be able to predict the effectiveness of EVPs in job ads. A deeper understanding of symbolic and instrumental propositions in job ads and labor market demands is needed if public healthcare organizations want to be more effective in attracting nursing students to jobs.