Job Fairs and Perceptions of Company Attractiveness: Evidence from Japanese Companies Recruiting Overseas

Research on impression management has continuously highlighted the importance of a company’s brand equity in attracting talent. Whereas the determinants of company attractiveness are well documented, less is known about the effects of recruitment tactics, particularly in non-Western settings. We investigated these effects using survey data from 13 Japanese multinational companies (MNCs) and 436 international job seekers collected before and after a large-scale career fair held in Singapore in 2017. The unconventional setup of the fair allowed us to conduct the survey in a semi-experimental setting. Using endogeneity-robust linear, logit and probit models, we found that recruitment tactics significantly affect perceptions of company attractiveness regardless of job seekers’ pre-existing beliefs. The effect is larger in cases of high person-organization fit. The mechanism modulating this effect is the image of personnel heterogeneity a company is able to project through the characteristics of its recruiting staff. We identify the key dimensions of heterogeneity and provide estimates of the optimal personnel heterogeneity levels. Our findings build on previous research on targeted recruitment in Western settings, showing that the success of international recruitment is contingent not only on fixed firm characteristics, but also on a firms’ impression management tactics throughout the recruitment process.