How Do “Funny” Job Postings Affect Job Seekers' Reactions? Humor and Job Attractiveness

Organizations sometimes embed humor into recruitment materials such as job postings to try to attract talent. Our research investigates the efficacy of humorous job postings. On the one hand, humorous job postings may be beneficial because the use of humor may signal positive organizational attributes. On the other hand, humorous job postings could also inadvertently convey a lack of seriousness in the organization's HR practices. Integrating signaling theory with benign violation theory, we develop and test a theoretical model of the competing signals that humor in job postings might send. We conducted three experiments using single stimulus approaches (Studies 1 and 2) and stimulus sampling approaches (Study 3). Studies 1 and 2 showed a negative effect of humor on job attractiveness, whereas Study 3 showed no statistically significant effect of humor on job attractiveness. Consistently across studies, humorous job postings led potential job seekers to expect the organization to display lower levels of procedural justice. These findings suggest exercising caution when using humor in recruitment materials.