Increasing the Effectiveness of Job Advertisements: How the Use of Imagery Language Impacts Perceived Organizational Attractiveness

Although effective job advertisements play a critical role in generating sufficient interest in potential applicants to actively pursue further relations with a public organization, insights on how such job advertisements need to be formulated in order to impact organizational attractiveness are limited. Therefore, this study examines if and how the use of imagery language in mission statements embedded in job advertisements is a valuable pathway to increase the effectiveness of job advertisements. The focus on mission statements is motivated by the fact that the service and society-oriented focus of public organizations is a distinguishing characteristic that can be a strength in a competitive job market. Based on two randomized survey-experiments using the same design (196 bachelor and 703 final-year students), we found that imagery language in mission statements initiates an underlying motivational process in which person-organization fit and mission valence are reinforced, resulting in higher levels of perceived organizational attractiveness.