How Important Is Word of Mouth to College Students When Considering Jobs? A Policy-Capturing Study of Organizational Attraction

Abstract

This research examines the effect of reputational word of mouth (WoM) from trusted sources on naive job applicants’ organizational attraction toward a possible employer. We used a policy-capturing experiment to identify the weight placed on WoM relative to other types of hypothetical information that college students with limited work experience might have about a job. Our within-person results show that WoM affects attraction over and above other types of company-dependent information about pay, benefits, and learning opportunities, which underscores the importance of WoM to inexperienced job seekers. Further, our between-person results demonstrate that the weight placed on WoM depends on individual differences in career decision self-efficacy (CDSE). Specifically, people with higher CDSE placed a greater weight on WoM than people with lower CDSE. These findings are important to career counselors who work with college students to understand how they appraise and make decisions about jobs to pursue. Further, these findings have value to organizations by underscoring the importance of reputational information to entry-level job seekers.