Digital war for talent: How profile reputations on company rating platforms drive job seekers' application intentions

Abstract Companies searching for talent face intense competition in labor markets, so they might attempt to use their reputations to attract qualified people. Today's job seekers can gather additional reputational cues from online profiles on rating platforms, as well as from general information. Therefore, companies might have multiple reputations. Their profile reputation reflects cues provided by rating platforms (e.g., numerical ratings); their corporate reputation refers to preexisting perceptions and general knowledge of the firm. To the extent that a company's profile reputation and corporate reputation exist in parallel, they likely interact to affect job seekers' application intentions. With preliminary insights gained from qualitative interviews and extensive pretests, the authors conduct an online experiment with 725 job seekers to determine how company profiles on employer review sites might exert signaling effects on job seekers' application intentions. In line with the theoretical predictions, a company's profile reputation affects application intentions, contingent on applicants' prior evaluation of the firm's corporate reputation. That is, the employer's profile reputation matters for attracting talent, but companies with a poor general corporate reputation also can benefit more from a good profile reputation. These nuanced insights in turn offer several implications for human resource management efforts.