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Advice‐seeking and advice‐utilization for hiring decisions: An investigation of a partially outsourced recruitment process for rank‐and‐file managers
Author(s) -
Fabel Oliver,
Hopp Christian,
Speil Alexander
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
managerial and decision economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.288
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1099-1468
pISSN - 0143-6570
DOI - 10.1002/mde.3138
Subject(s) - advice (programming) , agency (philosophy) , process (computing) , business , rank (graph theory) , scale (ratio) , marketing , actuarial science , public relations , computer science , political science , philosophy , mathematics , epistemology , combinatorics , programming language , operating system , physics , quantum mechanics
We study a large‐scale, partially outsourced recruitment process. A specialized consultancy assesses applicants' soft‐skills on behalf of a client firm, who retains agency over the hiring decision. We conceptualize this collaboration as an advice‐seeking, advice‐utilization process and analyze the effectiveness of hiring recommendations provided in influencing the client's hiring decisions. Two external HR specialists not only differ in their soft skill ratings, but also differ in their aggregation of these ratings into their hiring recommendations. The consultants' recommendations are particularly helpful in separating very suitable from clearly unsuitable candidates but are less effective in the mid‐tier of the skill distribution.