University of Twente Student Theses
Rapport Matters in Corporate Career Websites;Personal, Supportive, Responsive – Effective!
Tepe, Jana (2011) Rapport Matters in Corporate Career Websites;Personal, Supportive, Responsive – Effective!
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| Abstract: | Corporate career websites are gaining strategic importance in the recruiting mix which leads to innovative developments regarding their form, content and function. This study investigated 129 respondent’s reactions to personal, supportive and responsive elements on corporate career websites, all of them aiming at building rapport. Only students in the end phase of their study or recent graduates took part. Two real websites of banks were chosen as stimuli. One contained all of the three characteristics – and the other contained none of them. Assigned to one of two conditions, the participants imitated job seekers looking for career information on the particular company’s website. A pre- and a post-task questionnaire asked for familiarity, reputation, website attitude and applicant attraction. Indeed, participants confronted with the “bank plus website” containing all the characteristics used it more intensely and reported a higher applicant attraction. Increased familiarity and reputation due to the website visit were found to be more important than the website usage itself. Other than the familiarity and reputation before usage the increase of familiarity and reputation had considerable influence on website attitude and applicant attraction. However, the characteristics as operationalized by means of concrete website features were found to be less influential than the mere perception of the characteristics. Respondents oftentimes attested a website a personal touch, supportiveness, or responsiveness without actually having used the assigned features. It was concluded that the mere perception of the characteristics is even more important than how they are actually implemented. Building rapport in terms of the three characteristics makes a difference and matters in corporate career websites. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 05 communication studies |
| Programme: | Communication Studies MSc (60713) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/60904 |
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