Response to a crisis and applicant attraction: Signaling employer brand personality and organizational trust through warm and competent COVID-19 responses

This paper investigates how organizations' response to a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic affects their employer attractiveness. Based on signaling theory, we argue that a COVID-19 response can signal an organization's employer brand personality, positively affecting applicant attraction. We conducted two experimental studies with employed and unemployed UK participants through Prolific Academic. Both studies indicate that a warm COVID-19 response leads to the highest employer attractiveness and job pursuit intentions, although a competent response was still more attractive than no response. Moreover, applicants use the warm and competent responses as signals of organizational warmth and competence respectively, building higher organizational trust. Limited support for the moderating role of applicants' personality was found. Implications during and beyond COVID-19 are discussed.