Investigators: Dr. Martin Sievert & Dr. Petra van den Bekerom
Inquries: m.c.g.sievert@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Recruitment constitutes a crucial element in ensuring high-quality public services. Yet, given increasing competition in labor markets, attracting and selecting employees becomes more difficult for public organizations. A key question is whether public organizations can successfully improve recruitment processes across sectors and government levels. Despite acknowledging this objective, contemporary research in public administration lacks insights into public sector recruitment.
The proposed research project adopts a holistic perspective on public organizations’ recruiting processes. In addition, we pay attention to all relevant actors (i.e., applicants, recruiters, and organizations) participating in recruitment processes. The research project will contribute to the public administration literature by integrating human resource management and social and organizational psychology insights into public administration research and practice. Finally, it will generate crucial insights for practitioners working towards successful recruitment in public organizations.
Recruitment constitutes a significant factor enabling public organizations to provide high-quality public services (Asseburg et al., 2020). It encompasses “all organizational practices and decisions that affect either the number, or types, of individuals that are willing to apply for, or to accept, a given vacancy” (Rynes et al., 1991, p. 429). Recruitment success entails different objectives, such as increasing the applicant pool, the quality of applicants, and the environmental fit of appointees (Løkke, 2021; Vogel et al., 2022). Recruitment must also account for the need to increase diversity and representation (Sievert, 2021, 2023; Zwicky & Kübler, 2019). These objectives vary depending on different sub-sectors and cross-departmental functions (e.g., health, education, or digitalization) and levels of government (e.g., municipal level, national level).
Yet, public sectors face considerable pressure related to recruitment. Attracting and selecting skilled, fitting, and diverse employees becomes more difficult (Linos & Riesch, 2020; Sievert et al., 2022). Public organizations face increasing competition for personnel (Linos, 2018) and tend to receive fewer and less qualified applicants (Fowler & Birdsall, 2020). Moreover, public organizations face the retirement of the baby boomer generation (Pollitt, 2016) and a lower interest in public sector employment (Bright & Graham, 2015), both decreasing the available human resources in labor markets. These problems relate to the number of applicants as well as their quality. A lack of applications also decreases the probability of appointing employees exhibiting a high person-environment fit (Sievert et al., 2022) .
Public sector recruiters must deal with these problems. In particular, public organizations must optimize recruitment to increase the quantity and quality of applicants while considering the individual fit of appointees and the overall diversity of the workforce. Despite the practical relevance, contemporary research in public administration lacks insights into public sector recruitment (see e.g., Løkke, 2021). Although researchers and practitioners acknowledge these objectives (Asseburg et al., 2020; Lewis & Pitts, 2018), they often fail to provide targeted research and actionable insights.
This project takes a holistic perspective on recruitment by examining different steps of the recruiting process in public organizations (Løkke, 2021; Uggerslev et al., 2012). Commonly, recruitment consist of 1) the definition of objectives, 2) strategy development, 3) recruitment activities, and 4) recruitment outcomes (Breaugh, 2008). Our project combines this internal perspective on organizations, recruiters, and employees with an external view on labor markets and potential applicants.
The research project combines different methodological approaches. Initially, the project will commence with an integrative literature review (Elsbach & Knippenberg, 2020) focusing on public sector recruitment. This review will do the groundwork by encompassing all the abovementioned perspectives. Furthermore, beyond a mere synthesis of existing literature, this review will critically engage with the literature to identify research gaps. Based on this initial work, we intend to combine qualitative and quantitative methods to allow relevant inferences. For instance, focusing on applicant attraction allows a deductive research design, primarily applying quantitative methods (e.g., surveys, survey experiments, or choice experiments). In contrast, focusing on recruitment practices and employer branding in public organizations will require an inductive approach. Here, several qualitative methods can be applied, e.g., interviews, focus groups, or document analysis.
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Linos, E. (2018). More than public service: A field experiment on job advertisements and diversity in the police. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 28(1), 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mux032
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Sievert, M. (2023). The limited impact of reference groups’ symbolic gender representation on willingness to coproduce. Public Administration Review, 83(3), 587–602. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13619
Sievert, M., Vogel, D., & Feeney, M. K. (2022). Formalization and Administrative Burden as Obstacles to Employee Recruitment: Consequences for the Public Sector. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 42(1), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X20932997
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Vogel, D., Döring, M., & Sievert, M. (2022). Effektivität von Stellenanzeigen im öffentlichen Sektor. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/xk2dw
Zwicky, R., & Kübler, D. (2019). Microfoundations of active representation in public bureaucracies: Evidence from a survey of personnel recruitment in the Swiss federal civil service. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 29(1), 50–66. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muy055