This paper challenges a popular assumption that organizations with flexible work arrangements are more attractive to job seekers than those with a standard work arrangement. Drawing on boundary theory, we suggest that the attractiveness of these arrangements depends in part on job seekers' interrole conflict. Subjects were 142 MBA students at a midsized midwestern university. Those with high role conflict were more attracted to an organization when flextime was offered than when it was not. Those with low role conflict, however, were just slightly less attracted to an organization when flextime was offered. Conversely, subjects with low role conflict were more attracted to an organization when telecommuting was offered than when it was not; subjects with high role conflict were indifferent. These results suggest that organizations should understand the needs of their targeted applicant pool and carefully consider recruitment implications of work arrangements when analyzing costs associated with these policies. Our thanks to three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier versionsof this article and to Becky Metz and Jenni Brumm for their assistance in survey administration and data entry. The authors gratefully acknowledge the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, College of Business Administration, for financial support for this project. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Barbara Rau, College of Business Administration, 800 Algoma Boulevard, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI 54901; rau@uwosh.edu. COPYRIGHT 0 2002 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY, INC.

In this article we note that in the coming years, a larger number of people will be experiencing retirement for a longer period of time than ever before and that despite this fact, many will find themselves unprepared for this stage of their lives. We review the literature on retirement preparation, structuring our review around the key questions that need to be addressed when planning for retirement: (a) What will I do? (b) How will I afford it? (c) Where will I live? and (d) Who will I share it with? We make a number of suggestions for research and practice. We conclude that although psychology has begun to play a role in understanding and addressing retirement preparation, there are considerable opportunities for psychologists to engage with this issue in their research and applied work.

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SummaryThis research examined the impact of three organizational policies on applicant attraction of 120 older workers with an interest in bridge employment (i.e., work after formal retirement). Using a mock newspaper ad to manipulate policies, scheduling flexibility, and a targeted equal employment opportunity (EEO) statement positively influenced older workers' attraction to the organization, while opportunities to transfer knowledge had little impact. A significant and positive three-way interaction suggested that older workers are sensitive to the strength of the overall message such that the effects of all three policies when seen together were greater than the sum of their individual effects.

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