Take heed of those you reject: a candidate’s view of employer reputation

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to propose a novel candidate view of research on employer reputation. The authors examine how candidates evaluate a company’s employer reputation after failing in the job application process. Design/methodology/approach The data were mainly collected from Chinese university students. Regression analysis was used to evaluate the proposed hypotheses (n = 246). Findings The study reveals how candidates vary in their attributions of job-hunting failures and evaluations of employer reputation considering their different personalities (i.e. extraversion) and corporations’ procedural justice in the selection process. The empirical results show that rejected candidates’ trait extraversion and procedural justice in the selection process combine to influence internal attributions and thus affect their evaluations of employer reputation. Originality/value Understanding how rejected candidates evaluate employer reputation is vital to advancing employer reputation theory. This is one of the few studies to pursue this line of research. The research may also help companies develop more effective strategies to manage the candidates they reject and to maintain their employer reputations.