Interviewers who highlight competitive pay in their recruitment process might not find it as effective as previously thought when it comes to attracting top talent, according to new research by UCL School of Management professor Dr Sunny Lee.
Published in the International Journal of Selection and Assessment and co-authored with Dr Bart Dietz (Rotterdam School of Management), Dr Lee’s paper challenges long-held assumptions about how best to communicate with top candidates.
The authors conducted four studies with over 1000 participants, including a field study with a C-suite head-hunting firm and controlled experiments that simulated job interviews.
The study found that when interviewers highlighted competitive pay in an attempt to impress strong candidates, the approach actually appealed more to less-qualified applicants.
Conversely, when interviewers emphasised career development and growth potential, highly qualified applicants responded with greater interest and at a higher acceptance rate.
According to Dr Lee, this is because talented applicants tend to value autonomy and proficiency, while also being more likely to take competitive pay for granted:
“From an impression-management perspective, pay-talk is not a universal attractor for high-quality applicants.
“We are not saying that pay is unimportant. It is an essential part of job design and all employer-employee relationships. But what matters most is whether the job promises opportunities to grow, learn, and develop.”
The paper introduces a new perspective on interviewers’ strategic communication, shifting attention from how applicants self-promote to how recruiters “sell” the job.
Dr Lee plans to further examine how individuals differently value various types of work rewards in future studies that approach them from a job design perspective.
