Sex differences in the effects of recruitment practices

Abstract

The goal of this research has been to investigate if there are sex differences in the variables that best predict organizational attractiveness and how information days organized by the Royal Dutch Armed Forces affects these variables. By answering these questions insights are gained into the question how the Ministry of Defence can improve its information days so that more women will be attracted to work for the Armed Forces. The results showed that Diversity, Altruism and Autonomy aspects were significant predictors of the attractiveness expressed by female attendees and were most strongly negatively affected by the information days. Recommendations resulting from the analysis are the discouragement of specific women information days and the advice to focus more on Diversity and Altruism issues during the days through spoken and written information as well as through behaviour and other implicit signals send out by recruiters. Hence, attention to the Self-Efficacy Believes of women is also recommended as this will probably increase their self-confidence which results in higher expressed attraction.