• 94% of companies either use or plan to use these online sources for job recruiting (Jobvite, 2013)

• Finding the best applicants for a job saves companies money (Ballinger et al., 2011)

• 25-500% of an employee’s salary is spent in recruiting and training a new hire (Ballinger et al., 2011)

• 542 American job-seekers who were recruited via MTURK to complete an online survey

This study seeks to determine whether there is a correlation between online source usage and applicant quality. Applicant quality is measured using conscientiousness and GPA. Conscientiousness is a valid predictor of applicant quality because it decreases the likelihood of turnover. Additionally, GPA is correlated with better job performance, which also makes it a good predictor of applicant quality. This is important because it could potentially help job recruiters more effectively target online sources that yield the highest quality applicants.

Conscientiousness: •Socially prescribed impulse control (Hogan & Ones, 1997)

• Includes factors such as industriousness, order, self-control, responsibility (Roberts et al., 2005)

•Conscientious employees are less likely to involuntary turnover.

• Tend to perform better at their jobs (Barrick & Zimmerman, 2009)

GPA: •The condensed statistic of a student’s performance (Beatty, 2004)

• GPA is positively correlated with job performance (Roth et al., 1996)

• Will certain sources produce applicants with higher levels of conscientiousness?

• Can certain online sources produce applicants with higher GPAs?

• Sources that produce higher quality applicants will have positive long-term effects.

• If certain online sources are not yielding high quality applicants, companies could look to redirect their recruiting efforts.

• Study’s findings will help companies focus resources to specific online job sources that yield high quality candidates.

• These results indicate that recruiters should focus their efforts on improving the overall quality of the aforementioned sites in order to attract the highest quality applicants.

• The most conscientious job-seekers in the survey used the company website, r = .148;p < 0.01, followed by LinkedIn, r = .138; p < 0.01.

• The applicants with the highest average grades used Indeed the most, r = .178; p < 0.01, followed by the company website r = .171; p < 0.01.

• Based on this study, the job sources most likely to yield the highest quality applicants other than the company website are LinkedIn and Indeed.

Data taken from Jobvite 2013 Social Recruiting Survey

Abstract

Why is this important?

Applicant Quality

Job Sources

Participants

Research Questions

Results

Conclusion