Antecedents and outcomes of targeting older applicants in recruitment

Inspired by Rynes and Barber's and Avery and McKay's theoretical work, we examined factors that influence organizations' decision to target older applicants and the influence of this decision on other recruiting strategies. Our study of two samples of HR professionals provides mixed support for these theoretical frameworks. Incumbent age and an organizational climate that rewards diversity were related to targeting older workers, whereas an ageist climate and labour market tightness were not. Further, the decision to target older applicants was related to the number of recruitment sources used and, in one sample, an emphasis on work environment benefits. However, this decision was not related to an emphasis on financial stability benefits or to recruiter age. Keywords: Attracting older applicantsOlder workersRecruitment Notes 1As noted in the Methods section, because high-level jobs typically require more experience (which indicates an older average incumbent age), we control for the amount of vocational preparation required for the job in our analyses. Thus, the effect of incumbent age on the decision to target older workers controls for the skill and experience level associated with the given job. 2We tested the hypotheses proposing effects of the decision to target older workers on other recruitment strategies for each sample separately. Therefore, these measures were not combined across the samples. 3Note that recruiter age was omitted from this analysis, because we were forced to scale it differently for the paper and Web versions of the survey.