Comparing personnel representatives and line managers/engineers as engineering recruiters: An...

COMPARING PERSONNEL REPRESENTATIVES AND LINE

MANAGERS/ENGINEERS AS ENGINEERING RECRUITERS:

AN APPLICATION OF THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL

OF PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION

STEVEN D. MAURER Old Dominion University

VINCE HOWE University of North Carolina, Wilmington

Using a consumer behavior model, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of influence source communication, this study examined the relative effects of line managers/ engineers and personnel department representatives on psychological processes affecting job choice intentions of graduating engineers. Responses from a national sample of engineering students showed that job choice attitudes and overall reaction to corporate recruiting processes are highly related to interviewer proficiencies and personal cues identified as elements of “peripheral route” attitude formation processes in the ELM. Further, no differences were found in the interviewing skills of line managers, engineers, and personnel representatives or in their ability to meet applicant information needs. Implications of these findings for research and design of engineering recruitment strategies in high tech organizations are presented and discussed.

By definition, “high tech” organizations are those that employ unusually high proportions of R&D scientists and engineers who are critical to organizational success

Direct all correspondence to: Steven D. Maurer, College of Business and Public Administration, Department of Management and Marketing, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529-0223; Vince Howe,

Department of Management and Marketing, The Cameron School of Business Administration, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC 28403-3297.

The Journal of High Technology Management Research, Volume 6, Number 2, pages 243-259. Copyright @ 1995 by JAI Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 1047-8310.

244 THE JOURNAL OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT RESEARCH Vol. ~/NO. 2/ 1995

in dynamic product markets (Kleingartner & Anderson, 1987; Von Glinow, 1988). Such reliance on technical talent to create competitive advantage places many high tech employers in a high stakes effort to continually replenish R&D capacity with the most

capable engineering school graduates. For most high tech firms, this on-going need for technical workers imposes an urgent

need to recruit competitively in a technical labor market marked, on the one hand, by rapidly increasing demand, and on the other, by both an actual 15 percent decrease

in recent (1980’s) engineering enrollments (Beaufait, 1991) and a predicted downward

supply trend through the end of the century. In designing recruiting strategies to respond

to such conditions, decisions regarding who should serve as campus recruiters stands

as an element of critical importance. Research has shown that a main factor considered in addressing this issue is the question of whether campus representatives should be line managers/ engineers assigned temporarily to recruiting duties, or personnel representatives whose main duties relate to managing and conducting staffing functions. Rynes (1991) reviewed recent recruiting research and noted that while the recruiter’s

job role (line manager/engineer versus personnel manager) has received considerable attention, it is still not clear why persons from one role might be more effective than those from the other. This uncertainty is reflected in actual practice in that recent surveys

have shown about 57 percent of all campus interviews are conducted by personnel

professionals while the remainder are performed by staff and mid-management sources (Lindquist, 1991).

Given the importance of the above considerations to success of high tech employers, this study draws from the consumer behavior literature to investigate personnel representatives and managers/engineers in terms of their potential job role related effects on perceptions of engineering applicants. This approach is grounded in two related considerations suggested in contemporary recruitment literature. First is the

premise that engineering recruitment is essentially a process of marketing employment offerings to applicants engaged in making high involvement purchase choices (i.e., decisions involving high personal risk, high costs, and/ or downside risk) in a competitive

market of vaguely defined job products (Maurer, Howe, & Lee, 1992). This “job marketing” perspective is significant because it directs attention to the relative abilities

of personnel representatives and managers/engineers to serve as a “service marketing” influence source (e.g., financial services representative) responsible for molding attitudes that affect long term exchange decisions about a job “product” defined largely by the

source’s arguments and personal characteristics. The second premise for this work is derived from Harris (1989) who suggested that

psychological processes of recruiter influence may well be explained through the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) of persuasive communication. This model asserts that consumer decision attitudes are determined by either “central” or “peripheral” routes of attitude formation. In the central route, the communication recipient forms attitudes based primarily on careful scrutiny of source messages. In this route decisions are influenced by the credibility and general quality of persuasive

arguments presented by the message source. The alternative, peripheral route processing, is characterized by relatively low levels of attention to message content and high response to the source itself. Decision attitudes formulated by this route are based on reactions to the source’s interpersonal proficiencies (e.g., communication skills, empathy, sensitivity) and personal characteristics (e.g., demographic similarity, general

Who Should Recruit Engineers? 245

appearance). Based on a review of recruiting studies, Harris (1989) argued that although

“it is likely that the recruitment interview is processed via the peripheral route” future research is needed to determine which information processing route is actually

employed.

PERIPHERAL V. CENTRAL ROUTE CONSIDERATIONS

The first step to determining how recruiters from different organizational roles may influence applicant decisions is to respond to Harris’s call for better information about

which processing route is actually employed. Evidence indicating the use of central route processes is offered by several studies that have shown that information about specific

job characteristics is more important to job acceptance intentions than recruiter influences. This suggestion that applicants form intentions based more on close

consideration of job characteristic information than response to peripheral cues provided through the recruiter is supported in both cross-sectional and longitudinal

studies (Powell, 1984; Taylor & Bergman, 1987). Indeed, Taylor and Bergman (1987) noted that the effect of peripheral cues (e.g., recruiter empathy, interview structure) was significant at earlier stages of attitude formation and that a considerably greater

percent age of variance in applicant attitudes at the immediate pre-decision stage is explained by perceptions of job/ organizational attributes. This tendency to discount recruiter influence at later stages of process is further indicated by Rynes, Bretz, and

Gerhardt (1991) who conducted survey interviews of college graduates at an early stage of the search process (late January, early February) and again at the point where job

decisions were actually near (late March, early May). At the latter stages, student

inclination to discount interviewers was suggested in student statements such as:

If they are bad, it just leaves me where I was. I just chalk it up; there are always

going to be bad apples.. . (female arts undergraduate)

Interviewers aren’t necessarily representative of the company at all, so even if I had a bad first interview, if I like the company or the position, I’ll take a second

interview regardless of whether I liked the person.. . (female MBA).

I usually try not to let it affect me because you can’t let one person represent

an entire organization (male arts undergraduate).

Contrary to evidence favoring the importance of central route process effects, recent research has also shown that applicants are significantly influenced by peripheral cues provided by the campus interviewer. For example, Harris and Fink (1987) conducted a field experiment in which applicant responses gained immediately after a campus interview showed that recruiter factors such as personableness, competence, and informativeness were significantly related to intentions to accept a job offer while information provided about the job itself (an eight item scale) was not. Further, the relationship between interviewer factors and job acceptance intentions continued to be significant after controlling for data provided about the job. Similarly, Powell (1991) used hierarchical regression to compare pre-interview and post-interview data and found


that, after controlling for the effects of pre- and post-measures, only an eight item “positive affect” measure of recruiter attributes (e.g., recruiter empathy, interest in applicant, etc.) explained significant variance in perceived likelihood of job acceptance (the measure argued to be conceptually closest to job choice). These studies indicating that applicants respond significantly to interviewer provided peripheral cues are anecdotally supported in the Rynes et al. (1991) study in which students at the latter stages of the search process noted that:

. . .I generalize a lot about the company from their representative. If that person is not very sharp, does not seem particularly interested in me, or asks the same questions as every other recruiter, it does not impress me (male undergraduate with four job offers).

Its a real big factor.. . I guess it’s an impression I get of what the entire organization like, and whether that’s right or wrong, it’s real (female graduate student with three offers).

In the aggregate, then, existing research provides conflicting evidence regarding the role of central route or peripheral influences on college graduates in general. Implications of these findings for understanding attitude formation processes of graduating engineers per se are complicated by the fact that such students comprised only a minority of the sample in virtually all of the empirical work conducted so far. For example, among those reporting sample composition, engineers comprised approximately 41 percent in two studies (Powell, 1991; Taylor & Bergman, 1987) and 40 percent in another (Harn & Thornton, 1985). Unfortunately, the fact that none of these studies conducted separate analysis by academic discipline obscures the degree to which their findings represent the minority subsample of engineers or their non- technical peers faced with notably different job markets. Indeed, evidence that engineers comprise about 10 percent of all college graduates and yet gain 50 percent of all campus job offers (U.S. Department of Labor, DOL, 1988) suggests that their attitude formation process may differ appreciably from that of their non-technical peers because they are engaged in a choice process not commonly required of graduates in other fields.

Evidence concerning whether engineering graduates are more inclined to central or peripheral route processes appears, on the balance, to favor the latter route. Based on the ELM postulate that peripheral cues are likely to become relatively more important elements of persuasion “(a)s motivation and/or ability to process arguments is decreased”(Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) previous work seems to suggest the predominance of peripheral route activity. For instance, with regard to the motivation of engineers, it is logical to assume that although the expected availability of job options may moderate the motivation to pursue a particular position, engineering graduates should generally conform to Harris’ (1989, p. 3) observation that job searchers generally have a “high motivation to process information.” However, the ability of engineers to process job relevant information may be another matter. Evidence on this point is offered by Rynes, Heneman, and Schwab, (1980) who summarized research on applicant responses to recruiting efforts and argued that the numerous studies of engineering and business graduates reveal that such students lack the job knowledge needed to focus effectively on job and organizational attributes. Similarly, Harris (1989) noted that research shows


the ability of college graduates to process job information “may be limited” and argued

specifically that it is therefore likely that the recruitment interview is processed via the

peripheral route. In sum, these arguments suggest that, although engineers are educated

about the engineering profession, they may respond primarily to peripheral cues because

they lack an experience based cognitive structure needed to effectively identify and

evaluate critical job information.

In addition to the above considerations, reason to expect that engineers rely heavily

on peripheral cues is recently supported by Rynes et al. (1991). In their study they

noted that the vast majority of subjects felt that they were strongly or somewhat

influenced by recruiters and that the psychological source of such influence “. . . seemed

to depend almost entirely on the extent to which recruiters were seen as reliable signals [emphasis added] of what it would be like to work for the company” (p. 504). Evidence

concerning the specific tendencies of engineering graduates to respond to such

peripheral signals (cues) was provided by the following engineering student

observations:

One firm I didn’t think of talking to initially, but they called me and asked

me to talk with them. So I did, and then the recruiter was very, very rude.

Yes very rude, and I’ve run into that a couple of times (female engineering

undergraduate).

If they’re good and being very encouraging, then they make me want to work

for the company. If they’re very bad, it would be just the opposite, unless the

company had a really big name (female engineering undergraduate).

Consciously the recruiter doesn’t matter, but I’m sure that subconsciously it does.

If the person makes you feel comfortable, then you’ll feel more comfortable

about the job (male engineering undergraduate).

In sum then, research evidence that reveals both a tendency to respond to peripheral

cues and a limited ability to process information suggests that engineering students may

indeed process recruiting interviews based on peripheral factors reflected in recruiter

behavior and interviewing skills. Logically, this information processing approach should

affect the formation of attitudes regarding the likelihood of accepting a job offer and,

perhaps to a lesser extent, the applicant’s overall impression of employer recruiting

practices. Thus, we hypothesize that:

Hl: Applicant likelihood of job acceptance will be more related to

peripheral cues associated with campus recruiter performance in the

interview than to quality of information provided about the

employment opportunity itself.

H2: Applicant overall reactions to the recruiting process will be more

related to peripheral cues associated with campus recruiter

performance in the interview than to quality of information provided

about the employment opportunity itself.


ROLE FACTOR/PERSUASION ROUTE LINKAGES

One of the main tenets of ELM is that variables to be considered in persuasive processes

are those that serve as either persuasive arguments or peripheral cues (Petty & Cacioppo,

1986). Because both Hl and H2 predict that students respond primarily to peripheral

cues, the present study first considers job role factors that may affect peripheral cues

important to applicant perceptions. Of particular interest are role factors relevant to

two key peripheral influence elements cited by Petty and Cacioppo and that appear

in management studies of recruiter influence; a) recruiter expertise and b) the applicant’s

affective response to recruiter behavior.

Recruiter expertise. The ELM asserts that source expertise will significantly affect

attitudes when, as predicted in Hl and H2, the message recipient is engaged in low

Elaboration Likelihood (i.e., peripheral route) processing. However, based on a review of the recruiting literature, Rynes (1991) concluded that line managers/engineers and

personnel recruiters may provide different, but similarly useful, expertise in campus interviews. Specifically, she noted that “ . . .personnel recruiters might be expected to

excel in general company knowledge . . .whereas line recruiters might have specific

advantages in terms of more specific job-related information, and (possibly) higher

status” (p. 411). Thus, taken together, the ELM and Rynes’ observation suggest that

expertise may be an important cueing variable in student peripheral route decision

processes and that the job related expertise of line managers and organizational expertise

of personnel recruiters may play similar roles in forming applicant perceptions. The

premise that job and organizational expertise are similarly important to job seekers

conforms with Schwab, Rynes and Aldag (1987, p. 130) who noted that:

. . .the act of joining a new employer inherently confounds the constructs of job and organizational choice.. .[I]n accepting employment, an individual simultaneously accepts both the attributes of the job to be performed, as well as the attributes of the employing organization.

Affective Response to Recruiter. ELM emphasis on affective response, when applied to the recruitment context, calls attention to the applicant’s general reaction to the

recruiter’s personality (e.g., likability) and specific source behaviors (e.g., interviewing

skills). This issue is linked to role factors in the recruitment process by Rynes (1991)

who observed that research suggests that personnel recruiters should be expected to have better interviewing skills than line managers. Intuitively, this assertion is supported

by indications that professional personnel representatives are often assigned to recruiting roles based on identifiable interpersonal skills, that interview training is likely

to be invested in such individuals, and that they have significant opportunity to apply and practice interviewing skills. These observations suggest that professional interviewers should be better equipped to handle the interpersonal elements of the campus interview and engineers/line managers should be expected to be at a relative

disadvantage in their recruiting preparation and aptitudes.

Overall, such considerations indicate that graduating engineers should perceive peripheral cues provided through interviewing skills to be greater for personnel representatives than for line managers/ engineers. Thus we hypothesize that:


H3: Engineering student perceptions of interviewer behaviors and skills will be greater for those who interview with personnel representatives than those who interview with line managers or engineers.

Turning to role factor effects on central route processes, the ELM asserts that central route processing occurs through careful and thoughtful appraisal of issue relevant

arguments. In the recruiting context, this assertion implies that the candidate’s primary interest in job features should lead to central route processing of job relevant

information. However, as has already been said, it is unclear what form of information, job-specific or organization-specific, is most salient to job decisions. This problem was highlighted by Schwab et al. (1987) who noted that previous recruiting information studies have defined “job information” in terms of organizational factors such as

“advancement opportunity” (Taylor & Bergman, 1987) and “company/ work

environment” (Powell, 1991). These authors further argued that such confounding of organization-relevant and job-relevant variables has confused the ability to understand

their relative importance to applicant decisions. This failure to isolate the specific form

of information important to central route processes, joined with Rynes’( 1991) inference

that personnel interviewers may excel at organizational information while line managers

may provide more job task specific data, suggests that arguments provided by interviewers from both roles may be similarly relevant to central route cognitions. However, some practitioners and researchers (e.g., Rynes, 1991) have argued that engineers/managers may be inherently more credible than personnel representatives. According to the ELM, such credibility may enhance perceptions of the degree to which

key data was provided. Thus research suggests that, although line managers and personnel recruiters may provide information that is similarly valuable in central route

cognitions, engineers or managers may enjoy a credibility which may cause applicants

to see them as simply more plentiful sources of job relevant information. This premise

is tested in the hypothesis:

H4: The perceived amount of job relevant information provided in the campus interview will be greater for students who interview with representatives from line management or engineering roles than for

those who interview with personnel representatives.

METHOD

The present study poses a theory based extension of preliminary findings reported in an earlier article by Maurer et al. (1992). In that work attitudinal outcomes associated

with personnel representatives and engineering/ management recruiters were noted, but the psychological processes contributing to observed responses were left unexplained. The goal of this study then was to reexamine these data using ELM concepts to better understand how role related factors may influence psychological processes leading to student attitudes towards competing job opportunities. This effort responds to calls for a theory based approach to understanding employee recruitment (Harris, 1989; Rynes, 1991) and at the same time provides information important to practitioner needs in forging recruitment policy and strategy.


INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT

The survey instrument developed in this study was based on a review of the recruiting

literature and on results gained from focus group sessions conducted among graduating

engineering students actively engaged in job search activity at the University of Kentucky

(2 sessions), Georgia Institute of Technology (1 session), and Ohio State University (1

session). Focus groups employed inferences from the recruitment literature to solicit

qualitative information on student interests and motivations in response to recruiting

activities.

Based on focus group results and a review of the recruiting literature, six-point Likert

scale items were developed to measure student perceptions of procedures used and

information exchanged in campus interviews and at other stages of the recruiting process

(see Maurer et al. 1992 for information gathered about pre and post interview stages).

Specific responses were solicited regarding three aspects of the campus interview; a)

the degree to which procedures and behaviors were observed in the interview, b) the

kinds of information solicited and provided by the interviewer, and c) recruiter and

applicant demographics.

To minimize recall error and gain responses based on contact with a specific

employer, students were instructed to focus on the employer with whom they

interviewed with last. Further, to enhance recall in student responses, methods noted

by Huber and Power (1985) for improving recall data were employed. In particular

the survey strategy; a) guaranteed anonymity and identified benefits to the respondent,

b) focused on the most recent contact, and c) gathered information at the height of

the spring recruiting season, a time in which interviews are typically separated by only

a few days. Finally, following Huber and Power (1985) the final instrument was

pretested with 20 graduating engineering students to assess content, clarity, and

coverage.

SURVEY PROCEDURE

The survey instrument, along with an accompanying endorsement letter from the

National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) were mailed in bundles of 50 or

more to NSPE faculty advisors at 20 demographically diverse campuses across the

United States. Advisors had been solicited by phone prior to the mailing to gain

cooperation in distributing surveys to engineering students known to have begun job

search activity. Follow-up contacts with advisors indicated that about 900 of the

questionnaires mailed to advisors were actually distributed because some were ordered

as extras and because of unexpected logistical difficulties in distributing and gathering

the questionnaires at the end of the academic year. Through follow-up phone contacts

and other efforts recommended by Dillman (1978) to increase response rate (e.g.,

prenotification) 242 usable surveys were returned. The resultant 27 percent response

rate was considered acceptable in that it approximated the 35 percent rate reported

by Taylor and Bergman (1987) at about the same stage (i.e., the post-campus interview

stage) of their longitudinal survey.


CONCEPTUAL MEASURES

Items included in the survey were aggregated into conceptual measures for subsequent analysis. Principal component factor analysis (varimax rotation, eigenvalue greater than 1 criterion) was used to determine the internal consistency of responses to the set of items generated to measure interviewer performance, information provided in the interview, and overall reactions to the recruiting process. Items not having a loading of at least 0.4 were dropped from the thematic measure. Based on Nunnally’s (1978) exploratory scale reliability recommendations, only those measures with alphas greater than 0.7 were retained.

The scale development procedure yielded four campus interview measures (see Table 1) used in this analysis. Three of these measured campus interview information and tapped perceptions of information provided about “compensation/ benefits” (e.g., starting wage, benefits, bonuses/incentives, wage adjustments) “job/career information”(e.g., location, specific duties/ responsibilities, advancement opportunities) and “security/ success” (e.g., previous success of new hires, turnover rates). The fourth measured perceptions of interviewer behaviors and signals conveyed in the interview

TABLE 1 Response Scales: Item Means and Standard Deviations”

Factor/Scale Item Mear? SD

Interview Procedures:

Interviewer Performance

Information Provided in Interview:

Compensation/ Benefits

Job/Career Information

Security/ Success

Outcome Factor:

Overall Response to Process

Interviewer showed personal interest in

applicant

Interviewer showed enthusiasm during

interview

Interviewer made applicant feel comfortable

Interviewer was an effective communicator

Interviewer was enthusiastic about the firm

Starting salary

Methods of performance appraisal

Methods for raising salaries

Benefits (e.g., insurance, stock otions, retire-

ment, etc.)

Available bonuses or incentives

Location of available jobs

Specific information on responsibilities/duties

of available jobs

Opportunities for advancement within the field of engineering

Previous success of new hires

Turnover rates of the firm

Process increased interest 4.34 Satisfaction with information 4.16

Compared well to other employers 4.25

4.30

4.14 1.33

4.43 1.26

4.49 1.23

4.68 1.19

2.46 1.79

2.62 1.45

2.43 1.52

3.28 1.65

2.27 1.39

4.40 1.40

4.40

3.98

2.64

2.01

1.34

1.40

1.34

1.55

1.33

1.35

1.22 1.33

Notes: ’ Only constructs with alphas greater than 0.7 are listed.

b Items measured on a six point scale.


through a five item “recruiter performance” scale that addressed interviewer communication skills, enthusiasm for the firm, enthusiasm in the interview, displayed interest in the applicant, and ability to make the applicant feel comfortable.

DEPENDENT MEASURES

Two dependent variables were of primary interest. The first of these, “overall response to process” was measured by three Likert scale items that asked the student to agree/ disagree with the assertion that: 1) the recruitment process “increased interest in the

employer,” 2) he/she was “satisfied with information obtained about potential job responsibilities,” and 3) “relative to other employers, this process was conducted well.”

The sum of these three items (alpha = 0.84) was entered into the analysis. The second main dependent variable, “likelihood of job acceptance,” was measured by a 100 point item which read; “If offered a job by the firm I interviewed with last, the chances of me taking a job with them are ---- out of a hundred.” This item was fashioned after a common marketing research method for assessing intent to purchase a product or patronize a store (Churchill, 1991). Supplemental measures used a similar 100 point scale to assess satisfaction with information given at the pre-interview and interview stages.

SAMPLE

The typical respondent was single, male, 23.7 years old, unmarried, and a civil or electrical engineering major. Further, s/he typically expected to make over $27,200 upon graduation, had a 3.1 GPA, averaged 12 months related job experience, and, as of the survey, over nine interviews.

The sample profile was quite similar to data for the institutions sampled and to national statistics (American Association of Engineering Societies [AAES], 1988) for the 1987 graduating class surveyed. For example, the respondent sample was 19 percent female compared to a 16 percent female engineering graduate rate for the represented institutions (U.S. Office of Educational Research, 1989) and 17 percent reported by AAES (1988). In addition, the degree major profile was highly similar to the percent age of degrees awarded by the sample institutions and did not vary from AAES (1988) national percent ages by more than live percent in any field. Although these comparisons do not disprove nonresponse bias, they suggest that gender or discipline related effects are not likely to be significant. It appears, however, that better performing students may have been slightly overrepresented since both AAES sources and placement office directors contacted for national GPA data estimated an overall mean GPA of about 2.95 (compared to the sample GPA of 3.1) for the disciplines studied. This finding conforms with our intent to investigate students likely to be in greatest demand and may reflect the tendency for better students to belong to student chapters of professional societies.

RESULTS

Hypothesis 1 (Hl) examined whether peripheral cues associated with the campus recruiter and his/ her performance in the interview were related more to the likelihood


TABLE 2 Exploratory Measures: Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations

I. Interviewer

performance

2. Compensation/

Benefits

3. Job/Career

4. Success/ Security

5. Overall Process

Response

6. Likelihood of Job

Accept.

Alpha Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5

.74 22.04 5.51

.86 13.07 5.98 0.25**

.76 12.47 2.94 0.34** 0.34**

.70 4.65 2.56 0.30** 0.56** 0.34**

.84 17.08 4.62 0.55** 0.34** 0.46** .34**

N/A 68.84 30.3 0.34** 0.19 0.25** 0.18** 0.50**

Note; ** p < 0.01

of job acceptance than the amount of information provided about the employment

opportunity. Correlation and regression analyses were used to assess this hypothesis.

Correlations noted in Table 2 show that the assessments of the interviewer’s performance

were more related to the likelihood of job acceptance than were any of the three job

information measures; compensation/ benefits, job/career, and success/ security.

Interviewer performance and the three job information measures were also regressed

against the likelihood of job acceptance. As shown in Model 1 (full model) of Table

3, standardized betas of a General Linear Regression Model (Neter, Wasserman, &

Kutner, 1989) indicate that peripheral cues associated with interviewer performance had

the largest effect on likelihood of accepting a job offer.

A Chow test (Chow, 1960) was also conducted to determine if the number of

interviews experienced by the applicant altered the relative effects of interviewer

performance and job information on likelihood of job acceptance. Because sets of beta

coefficients for two submodels created by a split of the data around the median of nine

interviews (Table 3) showed no significant difference in any of the betas, results indicated

that the number of interviews did not moderate the relative effect of job information

and interviewer performance on likelihood of accepting an offer. However, it is worth

noting that one of the job information variables, career/job, was relatively more

important than interviewer performance for applicants who had participated in more than nine interviews.

Hypothesis 2 examined the relative importance of peripheral and central route factors

on the applicant’s overall perception of the recruiting process. Correlational data

reported in Table 2 show that overall responses to the recruiting process were more related to peripheral cues inherent in the interviewer’s performance than to any of the

individual job information measures. Moreover, standardized beta coefficients reported for the full Model 2 regression in Table 3 further indicate that interviewer performance had the greatest relative effect on overall responses to the interview process. A subsequent Chow test (Table 3) revealed no significant difference in any of the regression

coefficients for two submodels created by splitting the data around the median of nine interviews. Thus, the number of interviews did not affect the greater importance of peripheral cue factors on overall perceptions of the recruiting process.


TABLE 3 Job Information and lntenriewer Performance/Cues:

Regression Results with Number of Interviews

MODEL I: Dependent Variables = “Likelihood of Job Acceptance”

Full Model Intgerviews I 9 Variables (n = 238) (n = 138)

Interviews > 9 (n = 103)

Interviewer Performance 0.25*** 0.29** 0.22*

Compensation/Benefits 0.04 -0.06 0.14 Job/ Career 0.15* 0.04 0.27**

Success/ Security 0.03 0.14 -0.08

R2 0.15 0.13 0.22

F-Statistic 9.95*** 4.95*** 6.80***

Chow Statistic, Q = 1.26 > F(o.wz,zz~) = 2.26, indicates no significant difference in the set of regression

coefficients.

MODEL I: Dependent Variables = “Likelihood of Job Acceptance”

Full Model Intgerviews I 9 Variables (n = 238) (n = 138)

Interviews > 9 (n = 103)

Interviewer Performance 0.39*** 0.39*** 0.40***

Compensation/ Benefits 0.09 0.12 0.01 Job/ Career 0.27** 0.24** 0.31**

Success/ Security 0.08 0.12 0.01

R2 0.41 0.44 0.38

F-Statistic 39.61*** 25.38*** 14.97***

Chow Statistic, Q = 0.67 > F~o.~+~,zE) = 2.26, indicates no significant difference in the set of regression

coefficients.

Nom: * p < 0.05

** p < 0.01 *** p < 0.001

Hypothesis 3 (H3) asked whether student perceptions of interviewer behaviors and skills were greater for personnel representatives than for line managers or engineers. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results obtained using interviewer performance as the dependent variable and three recruiter role categories (i.e., engineer, manager, personnel representative) as independent variables revealed that mean scores on the interviewer performance measure were slightly greater for engineers (M = 22.65, SD = 5.1) and managers (M = 22.80, SD = 5.2) than for personnel representatives (M = 20.90, SD

= 6.4) but that the difference was not significantly different (F(0.95; 2,224) = 2.2, p

= 0.11). Thus, H3 was not supported. To investigate Hypothesis 4 (H4), separate ANOVA’s were run to determine if

perceptions of job information provided about each of three dependent variables; a) compensation/ benefits, b) job/career, and c) success/security varied according to recruiter role. Results developed using three recruiter role categories (i.e., engineer, manager, personnel representative) as independent variables showed no significant role related differences in information provided about compensation/ benefits (F(0.95; 2,225)


= 1.9 p = 0.15), job/career opportunities (f10.95, 2,225) = 2.1, p = 0.13) or success/ security issues (flO.95,2,225) = 1.1, p = 0.33). Hence, these results fail to support H4’s assertion that the level of job information provided by line managers or engineers should be seen as greater than that of personnel representatives.

DISCUSSION

Overall, the findings of this study indicate that in campus recruiting interviews, engineering applicants respond primarily to peripheral cue factors (e.g., communication

skills, enthusiasm, empathy) of the interviewer and that neither personnel

representatives nor line/ management interviewers are seen as inherently more effective providers of such cues or more prolific sources ofjob-relevant information. These results

tend to conform with the observation that students may lack the ability to process message arguments associated with central route attitude formation (Harris, 1989) and

suggest that peripheral cues and informativeness are associated with individual-specific rather than role-related characteristics of the interviewer.

These general observations bear important implications for campus interviewing

research and practice. With regard to the continued study of campus recruiting processes, this work indicates that peripheral cues gained in the campus interview are at least as important to acceptance intentions as are specific elements of information provided about the job itself. Thus, further research aimed at assessing the relative value

of job information and recruiting process effects should be discontinued in favor of efforts to learn more about peripheral route influences in the interview process. In so

doing, at least three important issues deserve special attention.

First, more needs to be known of the durability (i.e., temporal stability) of peripheral cue effects on applicant attitudes. The ELM suggests that attitudes formed peripherally

are relatively transient and easily modified (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Longitudinal studies of graduating students provide conflicting reports on this issue. For instance,

Taylor and Bergman (1987) found that peripheral cue factors significantly related to acceptance intentions at the early stages of the search process showed no relationship

at the later stages. On the other hand, comments noted by Rynes et al. (1991) indicate that peripheral cues associated with interviewer behaviors were important even among students at the latter stages of the search process. Marketing studies reveal that peripheral cues are important primarily at the early stages of attitude formation process but that product specific (i.e., job) attributes may become more important at later stages of consumer choice process (Assael 1992; Lavidge & Steiner, 1961).

Second, future research should attempt to gain greater insight into recruiter expertise

as an element of recruiting influence. For example, our finding that applicants reported no significant differences in the level and form of information provided by personnel

recruiters and managers/engineers indicates a need to understand why engineers/ managers are not more effective information sources. One explanation, that line managers/engineers do a poor job of actually conveying useful job related information, is supported by the fact that students reported relatively low levels of satisfaction (M = 75 on a 100 point scale; a middle “C” in student rating terms) with the quantity of job information provided by the interviewer. Such alternative explanations must be considered before the results obtained here can be fully understood.


Finally, work is needed to assess why applicants failed to respond more favorably

to interview skill related peripheral cues of personnel representatives than of line managers/engineers. One possibility is that a potential similarity bias towards

engineers/line managers may have negated or masked skill deficiencies evidenced by non-personnel representatives. Alternatively, it may be that personnel representatives simply are not better trained or equipped to handle recruiting tasks. Evidence favoring

the latter explanation is offered by Rynes and Boudreau (1986) who note that only about 12.5 percent of training time provided recruiters is devoted to interpersonal aspects of recruiting. Thus, personnel recruiters and line managers may share a general

lack of training in the mechanics of managing peripheral cue factors important to

attitude formation. A potential reason for the failure to train recruiters is offered by Rynes and Barber (1990) who argue that recruiting research has examined recruiters

as “naturally occurring phenomenon” and has therefore failed to provide evidence regarding the potential benefits of training programs for campus representatives.

For practitioners, this work offers several implications. Perhaps most importantly,

it is clear that a policy of selecting recruiters based simply on their organizational role is inherently flawed. While such an approach may be politically and/or intuitively

appealing, results obtained here show that neither personnel representatives nor line managers or engineers enjoy an innate advantage in affecting applicant perceptions.

Thus, this work suggests that a successful recruiting strategy should emphasize personal rather than role related criteria in staffing the campus recruiting effort.

Another implication, related to the first, is that considerable emphasis should be given

to peripheral cue factors in implementing a recruiting strategy. This premise suggests that a premium should be placed on interpersonal skill factors in selecting recruiting representatives. It also indicates that all recruiters should be provided training to

enhance interpersonal skills key to the conduct of a professional and effective interview.

The fact that only about 48 percent of all Fortune 1000 firms reported that they offer any recruiter training at all (Rynes & Boudreau, 1986) indicates that the advantages

of providing such training have been overlooked in recruiting program design.

Lastly, employers would be well advised to devote greater attention to identifying and meeting student information needs. The fact that students expressed relative dissatisfaction with the quality of information provided reveals a need to carefully consider the student’s consumer information requirements in the campus interview exchange. Such consideration should bear in mind that the main intent of the campus

interview is to stimulate the applicant’s interest in the position and motivate his/her willingness to exert further effort to learn more about it. This approach is consistent

with marketing studies of high involvement decision making which show that such decisions are made in stages and that information required at the various stages must vary to meet a goal agenda that is “continually being constructed and developed as the choice process proceeds” (Bettman, 1979, p. 22).

In interpreting the results of this study, it is important to bear in mind at least three methodological limitations:

1. Because this work employs a cross-sectional design and correlational data, the reader is cautioned against inferring causality in these results. Relatedly, although the scales constructed here are based on accepted standards for exploratory research, they have not yet been tested in other settings. Thus, future longitudinal


and/or experimental designs are needed to examine the causality patterns indicated in the present data and test the integrity of the scales posed here.

2. The present study is limited in that the percept-percept relationships reported

for Hypotheses 1 and 2 may be artificially inflated or systematically influenced

by common method variance. To determine the presence of common method

variance and gauge its effects on our results, detection techniques and post-hoc remedial measures suggested by Podsakoff and Organ (1986) were employed. Harmon’s one-factor test indicated some potential for common method variance. However, partialing out the common measurement effects did not substantially alter the results of our hypothesis tests. Further, because the larger correlation matrix from which the present data are drawn (Maurer, Howe, & Lee, 1992) revealed several non-significant relationships, a systematic inflation of correlations due to common method effects does not appear to have occurred. Although these factors tend to argue against a significant common method influence in our results, the reader is cautioned that the magnitude of the exploratory correlations reported here should be regarded as tentative until further work can be performed to control for possible common method effects.

3. Owing to the need to assure anonymity in order to gain respondent cooperation, it was not possible to track students to determine if actual job choices were consistent with job choice intentions. This limitation, however, is addressed by Sheppard, Hartwick, and Warshaw (1988) who performed a meta-analysis of consumer behavior research and found a very high correlation (corrected r = 0.80) between consumer choice intentions and actual purchase behavior. Perhaps more important to the present interest in engineering graduates likely to have a variety of job options, these authors found that the correlations between intention and choice were actually higher when the consumer had several choices than when options were limited.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors wish to express their thanks to the National Society of Professional

Engineers for their support and cooperation in the conduct of this study.

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