Matching Organization Personality Perceptions and the Job Applicant's Personality: A Correlational Study

Recruitment is the process by which organizations acquire the talent they need to be effective. As recruitment becomes more competitive, organizations need to attract the types of job applicants that best fit their needs. Recently, researchers have suggested that human resources departments adopt strategies that are similar to marketing strategies; specifically, it has been suggested that organizations can be characterized as having an organizational “personality,” and that the personality of an organization can be leveraged to attract the best applicants. Organizational personality is described similarly to brand personality and is defined as the human characteristics attributed to an organization. This research examines the relationship between organization personality perceptions and the personality of potential job applicants, that is, which type of applicant is attracted to which type of organization. Participants rated the attractiveness of 33 trait adjectives in a potential employer and then rated their own personalities in terms of Big Five and proactive personality models. Results suggest that the attractiveness of an organization’s perceived personality was related to the personality of the participant. Suggestions for future research are presented, and findings may be used to better understand which types of organizations are most attractive to which applicants.