Chapter 2: Hispanic Preferences in Organizational Recruiting Ads

Hispanics are currently the largest minority group in the United States, and by the year 2050, nearly 25% of the U.S. population will come from a Hispanic background. In this paper, individuals are labeled “Hispanic” if they reside in the United States and trace their background either to Spain or to one of the Spanish-speaking Latin American nations. Members of this group share some common basic cultural values that make them members of a clearly identifiable group (Marin & Marin, 1991). Despite the size of the Hispanic population, relatively little research has specifically addressed how the beliefs, motivations, and customs of Hispanics influence work attitudes and behaviors (Stone-Romero et al., 2002). To attract talent and increase diversity, Stone, Salas, and Stone-Romero (2002)(2002) suggested that organizations consider the culture and work-related attitudes of Hispanics, including how cultural values impact recruiting and selection processes. Thus, in order to provide a foundation for our study, we briefly describe the relevant job attraction literature and identify two Hispanic cultural values that are expected to impact work-related attitudes and behaviors. Then, we describe the current study which examines Hispanics’ and non-Hispanic Whites’ job attraction as a function of cultural values and the content of job advertisements.