Getting personal in personnel recruitment Available to Purchase

Observes that the use of personal characteristics in job advertisements is discouraged within the prescriptive literature. Examines the extent to which advertisers for personnel specialists apply them in practice, and the range of characteristics put to use. Findings show that 80 per cent of advertisements contain reference to at least one personal characteristic. Concludes that social skills, particularly communication, appear to be the most important characteristic of personnel specialists, but there is, nevertheless, variation between differing job areas. Concludes that, although advertisers seem to follow stereotypes when putting together advertisements, they do not make particularly good use of personal characteristics.