“Best Employers”: The Impacts of Employee Reviews and Employer Awards on Job Seekers’ Application Intentions

Recruitment Research and ELM

Research on recruitment has used ELM (Petty & Briñol, 2011; Petty & Cacioppo, 1984) to understand job seekers’ information processing of recruitment materials. Peripheral cues, such as web design (Gregory et al., 2013), fonts and quality of job advertisements (Jones et al., 2006), recruiters’ behaviors (Larsen & Philips, 2002), and physical attractiveness of people in job advertisements (Walker et al., 2008), affect job seekers’ attitudes toward organizations. Job seekers with low motivation or capabilities, such as novice job seekers, prefer simple job advertisements (Jones et al., 2006; Walker et al., 2008). Their attitudes and perceptions of organizations are affected by peripheral cues (e.g., Jones et al., 2006; Larsen & Phillips, 2002; Walker et al., 2008) because they want to avoid information overload (Lu & Gursoy, 2015). However, job seekers with extensive work experience, job search experience, and high product awareness prefer high-quality, specific, and detail-oriented recruitment messages because they can thoughtfully interpret information (Collins, 2007; Collins & Han, 2004; Jones et al., 2006; Roberson et al., 2005).

Organizational Prestige

Akin to employer reputation, organizational prestige is the extent to which a company is perceived as a well-regarded employer (Kanar et al., 2015). It is one of the three components of organizational attractiveness (Highhouse et al., 2003). Unlike general attractiveness and intentions to pursue, which are individual-based attitudes, organizational prestige is a perception of the societal view of the organization (Highhouse et al., 2003). It focuses on the normative qualities of an organization (Highhouse et al., 2003) and has been linked to lower turnover intentions (Rathi & Lee, 2015) as well as higher application intentions (Collins & Han, 2004), especially for college students seeking their first full-time job (Wayne & Casper, 2012).

Online Reviews and Employer Awards

Previous studies have shown that detailed employee reviews and employer awards are linked to prestige and application intentions (Baum & Überschaer, 2018; Collins & Han, 2004; Liu et al., 2016; Melián-González & Bulchand-Gidumal, 2016). However, job advertisements posted on online employee review sites only include parsimonious information in the form of overall star-ratings and employer awards (e.g., Fortune 100 Great Place to Work® Award). Overall star-ratings are an aggregated average of current and former employees’ evaluations of the organizations (Kim et al., 2014; Kim & Park, 2017). Except for organizations that do not have reviews, other organizations have star-ratings from 1-star, representing “employees are very dissatisfied,” to 5-star rating, representing “employees are very satisfied” (Glassdoor, 2022). Similarly, employer awards are endorsements from third-party professionals or well-known unbiased organizations, recognizing organizations with excellent human resources management practices (Fulmer et al., 2003). People view star-ratings and employer awards as credible because of their third-party nature (Cable & Yu, 2006; Carvalho & Areal, 2016).

Both star-ratings and employer awards indicate that organizations perform well, treat employees with justice, and have human resources excellence (Butler et al., 2016; Carvalho & Areal, 2016; Fulmer et al., 2003; Joo & Mclean, 2006; Melián-González & Bulchand-Gidumal, 2017; Stamolampros et al., 2019). These positive peripheral cues change job seekers’ attitudes toward organizations (Larsen & Philips, 2002) by persuading them that organizations are well-regarded. Organizational prestige, in turn, motivates job seekers to apply to organizations because organizational prestige indicates desirable job attributes (Collins & Han, 2004; Turban & Cable, 2003).

Recent studies found that employer awards can increase application intentions when the awards are well-established and when recruiting organizations are less well-known (Baum & Überschaer, 2018; Überschaer & Baum, 2020). Although there is no research on overall star-ratings, previous studies showed that employees’ attitudes toward organizations mediate the relationship between employee review content and application intentions (e.g., Liu et al., 2016; Melián-González & Bulchand-Gidumal, 2016). Combining the above logic, we propose that star-ratings and employer awards indirectly affect job seekers’ application intentions through prestige:

Hospitality Work Experience as Moderator

The ELM suggests that peripheral cues only affect people’s attitudes when they use the peripheral route to process information (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984). People with low experience and knowledge are less capable of evaluating detailed information (Larsen & Phillips, 2002; Walker et al., 2008). They prefer simple peripheral cues to avoid information overload (Larsen & Phillips, 2002). Conversely, capable people use the central route to analyze detailed information (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984), reducing the effects of peripheral cues on their attitudes (Lu & Gursoy, 2015).

Novice job seekers have fewer opportunities to understand their potential employers (Kim et al., 2010). For example, hospitality students evaluate their potential employers through limited indirect channels (Cho et al., 2006). They do not have personal experience evaluating detailed recruitment information (Chi & Gursoy, 2009; Feldman & Arnold, 1978) and can be easily influenced by recruiters (Rynes et al., 1991). Detailed information can be confusing for novice job seekers (Lu & Gursoy, 2015), making them rely on the peripheral route to process the job advertisement (Jones et al., 2006; Larsen & Philips, 2002; Walker et al., 2008). Accordingly, peripheral cues, such as star-ratings and employer awards, have stronger effects on novice job seekers’ perceived organizational prestige.

Conversely, experienced job seekers have been exposed to real-life hospitality job characteristics and situations, enabling them to process complex recruitment information (Feldman & Arnold, 1978). Detailed information on job advertisements is useful for experienced job seekers (Jones et al., 2006; Larsen & Phillips, 2002). Instead of relying on peripheral cues, such as star-ratings and employer awards, experienced job seekers assess their person–job and person–organizational fit by referring to detailed recruitment information (Kristof-Brown et al., 2002; Walker et al., 2008). In related research, Collins (2007) and Kanar et al. (2015) showed that job seekers prefer to use high information recruitment practices when they know the organizations. Walker et al. (2008) found that peripheral cues, such as the job advertisement models’ physical attractiveness, have weaker impacts on experienced job seekers:

Design and Stimuli

This study used a 3 (Star-Ratings: no star-ratings vs. 1-star ratings vs. 5-star ratings) × 2 (Employer Awards: awarded vs. controlled) × 2 (Job Types: part-time vs. full-time) between-subjects experimental design. A full factorial design was used because it is a simple systematic design that allows the estimation of main and interaction effects (Graham & Cable, 2001). This study includes three levels of star-ratings to account for job advertisements of organizations with no reviews, a low level of satisfaction, and a high level of satisfaction, for three reasons (Glassdoor, 2022; Melián-González & Bulchand-Gidumal, 2017). First, many small businesses do not have reviews on Glassdoor (Jackson, 2018), making it necessary to include a no star-rating condition. Second, using extreme ends of the star-ratings continuum provides a direct and conservative means to examine the potential effects of star-ratings (Park & Nicolau, 2015). Third, including all possible star-ratings in a full factorial design is not feasible because it exponentially increases the sample size requirement (Cohen, 1992). Although job type was not a part of the theoretical model, it was included to control the difference in job attitudes among part-time and full-time workers (Thorsteinson, 2003). As half of the hospitality jobs are part time (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021), including job types in the experimental design can enhance the findings’ generalizability.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of 12 experimental conditions and read one job advertisement for a front desk supervisor. The experiment selected the front desk supervision positions for two reasons. First, a hospitality degree is a common requirement for the job (O*Net, 2021). Second, front desk supervisors are among the top 10 hospitality careers (University of Central Florida, n.d.), with more than 5,000 openings yearly (O*Net, 2021). We used a fictional hotel named “U Hotels” to avoid any dispositional bias by the hotel brand (Saini et al., 2015). To ensure the job advertisement’s reality, the materials and layout modeled an actual front desk supervisor job advertisement from Glassdoor.com (see Figure 1). Glassdoor.com was chosen because it has 49 million employee reviews on approximately 900,000 companies in 190 countries (Glassdoor, 2019) and attracts more than 67 million unique users each month (Glassdoor, n.d.-a). There are more than 5,000 front desk supervisor jobs on glassdoor.com (Glassdoor, n.d.-b) in which 82 of the 136 traditional lodging companies in North America (HospitalityNet, n.d.) were listed.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Experimental Material.

The job description, requirement, and advertisement layout were the same across all conditions, with three exceptions. First, star-ratings were manipulated in a small icon next to the hotel name. In the no-star ratings condition (n = 65), no icon was displayed. In the 1-star (n = 75) or 5-star (n = 63) condition, the icon showing “1.0 ☆” or “5.0 ☆” was displayed. Employer awards were manipulated by displaying an empty line (controlled, n = 104) or the statement “Fortune’s 100 best companies to work for 2018” (awarded, n = 99) under the hotel name. This award was chosen because it is well-known and established (Butler et al., 2016). Finally, the job type was manipulated by adding “(Full-time)” (n = 111) or “(Part-time)” (n = 92) after the job title.

We conducted a supplemental study with 86 hospitality students to test the study’s realism and the manipulation’s effectiveness. Participants found the advertisement realistic (M = 3.80); the realism rating was significantly higher than neutral (mean difference = .80, t_[85] = 8.81, p < .01). In terms of manipulation effectiveness, participants could accurately identify (a) whether “the advertisement you just read included a star-rating of the organization” (χ² = 47.89, p < .01), (b) “the star-ratings in the advertisement you just read” (χ² = 43.10, p < .01), and (c) whether “the advertisement you just read included an award” (χ² = 63.65, p < .01).

After reading the job advertisement, participants rated prestige and job application intentions. Organizational prestige was measured with five items developed by Highhouse et al. (2003) on a 5-point Likert-type scale (α = .87). Application intentions was measured with the item “If you were currently seeking a job, how likely would you be to apply for this position?” on a scale of 0 (extremely unlikely) to 10 (extremely likely). Finally, they reported their demographic information and total hospitality work experience (in years and months).

Participants

Participants were recruited from hospitality alumni, undergraduate students, and graduate students from two major hospitality programs in the United States. Alumni were recruited through email and a post on the alumni Facebook page. We excluded freshmen to ensure participants had some hospitality work experience. The sample was selected because of their likelihood of searching for jobs (Chang & Tanford, 2018). Data were collected 1 month before the universities’ career fair. Participants who failed any one of the attention checks were excluded. A total of 203 (65% male, average age = 23.48 years) participants completed the study. Participants had an average of 3.27 years of hospitality work experience (SD = 4.97). Participants were active in job search—on average, they engaged in six job search activities in the past year (SD = 1.97).

Theoretical Implications

Using ELM as a framework for understanding job seekers’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, our study examines the moderating role of job seekers’ hospitality work experience. It echoes previous management research that suggests that job seekers’ characteristics, such as person–job fit (Gregory et al., 2013), job search experience (Walker et al., 2008), and familiarity with employers (Kanar et al., 2015), affect their ability and motivation to process recruitment information with peripheral and central routes (Larsen & Philips, 2002). By arguing that hospitality work experience affects job seekers’ capabilities to process complex recruitment information, our study provides evidence of a key boundary condition associated with the application and utility of ELM as an explanatory framework for hospitality recruitment research.

Our results shed new light on the relevance of different types of information that may influence job seekers. Previous studies either focused on the impacts of employee review content or that of employer awards independently. By examining how star-ratings and employer awards concurrently affect novice and experienced job seekers’ application intentions, our study may explain why customers and job seekers process star-ratings and awards information differently. Specifically, because many customers are novices, they tend to trust other customers’ reviews (Lim et al., 2006). Accordingly, consumer research comparing consumer-generated star-ratings and travel magazine awards found that consumers are more likely to trust feedback from other consumers than travel industry experts (Belarmino et al., 2021). However, job seekers vary in work experience. Thus, this study shows that both star-ratings and employer awards affect novice job seekers simultaneously, whereas experienced job seekers only consider employer awards. Our study adds to recent research on online recruitment (Lee et al., 2021) by focusing on job seekers’ information processing.

By focusing on the context of unfamiliar brands, this research adds to the growing interest in online recruitment (e.g., Lee et al., 2021), employee reviews (e.g., Stamolampros et al., 2020), and employer awards (e.g., Baum & Überschaer, 2018) in hospitality literature. Whereas some previous research on employee reviews focused on qualitative comments (Stamolampros et al., 2020), others examined the joint impact of qualitative comments and quantitative star-ratings (e.g., Melián-González & Bulchand-Gidumal, 2017). Unlike these studies focusing on large-sized organizations, we show that overall star-ratings affect novice job seekers’ organizational prestige and application intentions to unfamiliar organizations. As star-ratings, but not review content, can be found in job advertisements, this study demonstrates the importance of overall star-ratings for organizations with low brand familiarity.

Practical Implications

Organizations, especially those with low brand familiarity, should monitor external employee review sites, which can affect novice job seekers. As college students tend to be novice job seekers (Cho et al., 2006), recruiters should be mindful of the star-ratings and advertise positive reviews during campus visits. Organizations can use review information to complement internally derived sources of employee sentiment. Employees are often reluctant to answer internal assessment forms because they fear being identified and retaliated against within the organization (Lauritsen, 2019). Online review sites provide them with an anonymous outlet for feedback. Constant monitoring of star-ratings allows organizations to be aware of job seekers’ perception of organizational prestige. In addition, as online recruitment sites have increased in prominence (Cable & Yu, 2006), organizations can consider providing managerial responses to mitigate the unduly negative influences from former disgruntled employees.

This study finds that employer awards increase organizational prestige and job seekers’ application intentions regardless of the job seekers’ hospitality work experience. Although most employer awards involve small application fees and administrative costs, hospitality organizations, especially organizations with low familiarity (Kanar et al., 2015), should compete for highly recognized awards (Baum & Überschaer, 2018) and include the awards in job advertisements as a way of recruiting top talent. Whereas major corporations may find “Fortune’s 100 best companies to work for” and “Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Awards” appropriate, smaller hospitality organizations can consider “Fortune’s Best Small & Medium Workplaces,” which is designed for organizations with 10 or more employees.

Limitations and Future Research

This study has several limitations. First, the experimental design may yield weaker reactions than the actual job application because of its artificial nature and the inclusion of extreme star-ratings (1-star vs. 5-star) conditions. Future research can collaborate with organizations to manipulate information listed on the job advertisement while measuring star-ratings and actual job applications.

Second, we sampled hospitality students as well as alumni and asked them to consider a front desk supervisor job on Glassdoor.com. It limits the study’s external validity because our samples were younger, had less work experience, and were more educated than average hospitality workers. As experienced job seekers are more likely to process recruitment information with a central route when they apply for senior-level jobs (Larsen & Philips, 2002), job rank can be an important boundary condition not examined in this study. Future studies may replicate our study in the context of the senior-level job markets.

Third, previous studies showed that famous employer awards strongly affect job seekers when they apply for organizations with low brand familiarity (Baum & Überschaer, 2018). This study tested the proposed model under weak brand familiarity by using a fictional hotel in the scenarios. As another source of information (Baum & Überschaer, 2018), brand familiarity may attenuate the effects of the star-ratings and employer awards. Accordingly, we encourage future studies to test the moderating effects of brand familiarity.