The role of trustworthiness in recruitment and selection: A review and guide for future research

Summary Although scholars recognize the importance of trustworthiness for both job applicants and hiring organizations, prior research exploring trustworthiness during the organizational pre‐entry period is scattered across a number of disparate literatures. This paper selectively reviews prior work that investigates the role of trustworthiness in the recruitment and selection processes. Within these pre‐entry processes, we explore how job applicants' and hiring organizations' perceptions of one another's trustworthiness, conceptualized as each parties' attitudes regarding the others' benevolence, integrity, and ability, influence meaningful recruitment and selection outcomes. Avenues for future research regarding trustworthiness are also identified in each section of the review. Finally, particular attention is given to two overarching issues at the intersection of trustworthiness and pre‐entry processes—trust violations and individual differences in propensity to trust.