Hostname: page-component-699b5d5946-csg8k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-08T06:40:08.431Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Managers’ interview invitation decisions about older job applicants: human capital, economic conditions and job demands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2016

JAAP OUDE MULDERS ,
KÈNE HENKENS ,
YIHAO LIU ,
JOOP SCHIPPERS  and
MO WANG
JAAP OUDE MULDERS*
Affiliation:
Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands.
KÈNE HENKENS
Affiliation:
Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands. University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
YIHAO LIU
Affiliation:
Department of Management, Warrington College of Business Administration, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA.
JOOP SCHIPPERS
Affiliation:
Utrecht University School of Economics, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
MO WANG
Affiliation:
Department of Management, Warrington College of Business Administration, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA.
*
Address for correspondence: Jaap Oude Mulders, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, Lange Houtstraat 19, 2511 CV, The Hague, The Netherlands E-mail: oudemulders@nidi.nl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Older job applicants are vulnerable to stereotype-related bias in the recruitment process. In the current study, we examined how managers’ job interview invitation decisions regarding older job applicants are influenced by applicants’ human capital-related characteristics, general economic conditions and managers’ perceptions of changes in organisational job demands. Data were collected in two waves of a vignette experiment, three years apart, among a sample of 211 Dutch managers from various organisations. Multi-level analysis showed that managers were more likely to invite older job applicants who had matching qualifications, were employed at the time of application and came with recommendations. In addition, managers’ propensity to invite older job applicants was higher in better economic conditions. The effects of recommendations were moderated by the general economic conditions and changes in organisational job demands, such that a recommendation from another employer was especially influential in bad economic conditions, while a recommendation from an internal employee was especially influential when job demands had increased. The results emphasise the importance of considering the organisational and economic context in understanding the recruitment of older workers. The findings also suggest that older workers, employers and policy makers should invest in older workers’ human capital to protect their employability.

Keywords

older workersrecruitmentpersonnel selectionhiringhuman capitalgeneral economic conditionsjob demands

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , April 2018 , pp. 839 - 864
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adler, G. and Hilber, D. 2009. Industry hiring patterns of older workers. Research on Aging, 31, 1, 69–88.Google Scholar
Ahmed, A. M., Andersson, L. and Hammarstedt, M. 2012. Does age matter for employability? A field experiment on ageism in the Swedish labour market. Applied Economic Letters, 19, 4, 403–6.Google Scholar
Akerlof, G. A. 1970. The market for ‘lemons’: quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84, 3, 488–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bal, A. C., Reiss, A. E. B., Rudolph, C. W. and Baltes, B. B. 2011. Examining positive and negative perceptions of older workers: a meta-analysis. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 66B, 6, 687–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bangerter, A., Roulin, N. and König, C. J. 2012. Personnel selection as a signaling game. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 4, 719–38.Google Scholar
Barker, V. L. and Mone, M. A. 1998. The mechanistic structure shift and strategic reorientation in declining firms attempting turnarounds. Human Relations, 51, 10, 1227–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baxter, J. C., Brock, B., Hill, P. C. and Rozelle, R. M. 1981. Letters of recommendation: a question of value. Journal of Applied Psychology, 66, 3, 296–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, V. 2013. Employers’ use of older workers in the recession. Employee Relations, 35, 3, 257–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. 1975. Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education. National Bureau of Economic Research, New York.Google Scholar
Bendick, M., Brown, L. E. and Wall, K. 1999. No foot in the door: an experimental study of employment discrimination against older workers. Journal of Aging & Social Policy, 10, 4, 5–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bills, D. B. 1990. Employers’ use of job history data for making hiring decisions: a fuller specification of job assignment and status attainment. The Sociological Quarterly, 31, 1, 23–35.Google Scholar
Chan, S. and Stevens, A. H. 2001. Job loss and employment patterns of older workers. Journal of Labor Economics, 19, 2, 484–521.Google Scholar
Chen, C. C., Huang, Y. M. and Lee, M. I. 2011. Test of a model linking applicant résumé information and hiring recommendations. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 19, 4, 374–87.Google Scholar
Chiu, W. C. K., Chan, A. W., Snape, E. and Redman, T. 2001. Age stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes towards older workers: an East–West comparison. Human Relations, 54, 5, 629–61.Google Scholar
Cole, M. S., Feild, H. S. and Giles, W. F. 2003. What can we uncover about applicants based on their resumes? A field study. Applied HRM Research, 8, 2, 51–62.Google Scholar
Cole, M. S., Feild, H. S., Giles, W. F. and Harris, S. G. 2009. Recruiters’ inferences of applicant personality based on resume screening: do paper people have a personality? Journal of Business and Psychology, 24, 1, 5–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, M. S., Rubin, R. S., Feild, H. S. and Giles, W. F. 2007. Recruiters’ perceptions and use of applicant résumé information: screening the recent graduate. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 56, 2, 314–43.Google Scholar
D'Addio, A. C., Keese, M. and Whitehouse, E. 2010. Population ageing and labour markets. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 26, 4, 613–35.Google Scholar
Daniel, K. and Heywood, J. S. 2007. The determinants of hiring older workers: UK evidence. Labour Economics, 14, 1, 35–51.Google Scholar
De Graaf-Zijl, M., Van Der Horst, A., Van Vuuren, D., Erken, H. and Luginbuhl, R. 2015. Long-term unemployment and the Great Recession in the Netherlands: economic mechanisms and policy implications. De Economist, 163, 4, 415–34.Google Scholar
Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F. and Schaufeli, W. B. 2001. The job demands–resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 3, 499–512.Google Scholar
Derous, E., Ryan, A. M. and Serlie, A. W. 2015. Double jeopardy upon resumé screening: when Achmed is less employable than Aïsha. Personnel Psychology, 68, 3, 659–96.Google Scholar
Erdogan, B., Bauer, T. N., Peiró, J. M. and Truxillo, D. M. 2011. Overqualified employees: making the best of a potentially bad situation for individuals and organizations. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 4, 2, 215–32.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, L. M., Burke, M. J. and Raju, N. S. 1995. Age discrimination in simulated employment contexts: an integrative analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 6, 652–63.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, L. M., King, E. B. and Voyles, E. C. 2015. Age metastereotyping and cross-age workplace interactions: a meta view of age stereotypes at work. Work, Aging and Retirement, 1, 1, 26–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, R. A., Rozelle, R. M. and Baxter, J. C. 1988. The effect of applicant age, job level, and accountability on the evaluation of job applicants. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 41, 1, 22–33.Google Scholar
Hainmueller, J., Hangartner, D. and Yamamoto, T. 2015. Validating vignette and conjoint survey experiments against real-world behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112, 8, 2395–400.Google Scholar
Huang, Y. M., Chen, C .C. and Lai, S. Y. 2013. Test of a multidimensional model linking applicant work experience and recruiters’ inferences about applicant competencies. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24, 19, 3613–29.Google Scholar
Jackson, S. E. and Schuler, R. S. 1995. Understanding human resource management in the context of organizations and their environments. Annual Review of Psychology, 46, 237–64.Google Scholar
Karasek, R., Brisson, C., Kawakami, N., Houtman, I., Bongers, P. and Amick, B. 1998. The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ): an instrument for internationally comparative assessments of psychosocial job characteristics. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 3, 4, 322–55.Google Scholar
Karpinska, K., Henkens, K. and Schippers, J. 2013. Retention of older workers: impact of managers’ age norms and stereotypes. European Sociological Review, 29, 6, 1323–35.Google Scholar
Karren, R. and Sherman, K. 2012. Layoffs and unemployment discrimination: a new stigma. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 27, 8, 848–63.Google Scholar
Kim, Y. and Ployhart, R. E. 2014. The effects of staffing and training on firm productivity and profit growth before, during, and after the Great Recession. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99, 3, 361–89.Google Scholar
Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D. and Johnson, E. C. 2005. Consequences of individuals’ fit at work: a meta-analysis of person–job, person–organization, person–group, and person–supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58, 2, 281–342.Google Scholar
Kunze, F., Boehm, S. and Bruch, H. 2013. Age, resistance to change, and job performance. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28, 7/8, 741–60.Google Scholar
Landy, F. J. 2008. Stereotypes, bias, and personnel decisions: strange and stranger. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1, 4, 379–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latham, S. F. and Braun, M. R. 2011. Economic recessions, strategy, and performance: a synthesis. Journal of Strategy and Management, 4, 2, 96–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lockwood, B. 1991. Information externalities in the labour market and the duration of unemployment. Review of Economic Studies, 58, 4, 733–53.Google Scholar
Marsden, P. V. and Gorman, E. H. 2001. Social networks, job changes, and recruitment. In Berg, I. E. and Kalleberg, A. L. (eds), Sourcebook of Labor Markets: Evolving Structures and Processes. Plenum Press, New York, 476–502.Google Scholar
Martinez, P. G., Lengnick-Hall, M. L. and Kulkarni, M. 2014. Overqualified? A conceptual model of managers’ perceptions of overqualification in selection decisions. Personnel Review, 43, 6, 957–74.Google Scholar
Morgeson, F. P. and Campion, M. A. 1997. Social and cognitive sources of potential inaccuracy in job analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 5, 627–55.Google Scholar
Muchinsky, P. M. 1979. The use of reference reports in personnel selection: a review and evaluation. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 52, 4, 287–97.Google Scholar
Neumark, D. and Button, P. 2014. Did age discrimination protection help older workers weather the Great Recession? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 33, 3, 566–601.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2014. Ageing and Employment Policies: Netherlands 2014: Working Better with Age. OECD Publishing, Paris.Google Scholar
Oude Mulders, J., Henkens, K. and Schippers, J. 2016. European top managers’ age-related workplace norms and their organizations’ recruitment and retention practices regarding older workers. The Gerontologist. Published online 21 April. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnw076.Google Scholar
Oude Mulders, J., Van Dalen, H. P., Henkens, K. and Schippers, J. 2014. How likely are employers to rehire older workers after mandatory retirement? A vignette study among managers. De Economist, 162, 4, 415–31.Google Scholar
Pager, D. and Quillian, L. 2005. Walking the talk? What employers say versus what they do. American Sociological Review, 70, 3, 355–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, E. L., Golom, F. D., Catenacci, L., Ingraham, M. E., Covais, E. M. and Molina, J. J. 2016. Talkin’ ’bout your generation: the impact of applicant age and generation on hiring-related perceptions and outcomes. Work, Aging and Retirement. Published online 11 October. doi: 10.1093/workar/waw029.Google Scholar
Posthuma, R. A. and Campion, M. A. 2009. Age stereotypes in the workplace: common stereotypes, moderators, and future research directions. Journal of Management, 35, 1, 158–88.Google Scholar
Protsch, P. and Solga, H. 2015. How employers use signals of cognitive and noncognitive skills at labour market entry. Insights from field experiments. European Sociological Review, 31, 5, 521–32.Google Scholar
Robie, C., Emmons, T., Tuzinski, K. A. and Kantrowitz, T. 2011. Effects of an economic recession on leader personality and general mental ability scores. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 19, 2, 183–9.Google Scholar
Roscigno, V. J., Mong, S., Byron, R. and Tester, G. 2007. Age discrimination, social closure and employment. Social Forces, 86, 1, 313–34.Google Scholar
Rosen, B. and Jerdee, T. H. 1976. The influence of age stereotypes on managerial decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 4, 428–32.Google Scholar
Rossi, P. H. and Anderson, A. B. 1982. The factorial survey approach: an introduction. In Rossi, P. H. and Nock, S. L. (eds), Measuring Social Judgments: The Factorial Survey Approach. Sage, Beverly Hills, California, 15–67.Google Scholar
Schaufeli, W. B., Bakker, A. B. and Van Rhenen, W. 2009. How changes in job demands and resources predict burnout, work engagement, and sickness absenteeism. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 7, 893–917.Google Scholar
Scherpenzeel, A. C. and Das, M. 2010. ‘True’ longitudinal and probability-based internet panels: evidence from the Netherlands. In Das, M., Ester, P. and Kaczmirek, L. (eds), Social and Behavioral Research and the Internet: Advances in Applied Methods and Research Strategies. Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, Florida, 77–104.Google Scholar
Schmidt, F. L. and Zimmerman, R. D. 2004. A counterintuitive hypothesis about employment interview validity and some supporting evidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 3, 553–61.Google Scholar
Snijders, T. A. B. and Bosker, R. J. 1999. Multilevel Analysis: An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Multilevel Modeling. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Spence, M. 1973. Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87, 3, 355–74.Google Scholar
Tourangeau, R., Rasinski, K. A., Bradburn, N. and D'Andrade, R. 1989. Carryover effects in attitude surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly, 53, 4, 495–524.Google Scholar
Tsai, W. C., Chi, N. W., Huang, T. C. and Hsu, A. J. 2011. The effects of applicant résumé contents on recruiters’ hiring recommendations: the mediating roles of recruiter fit perceptions. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 60, 2, 231–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dalen, H. P. and Henkens, K. 2013. Dilemmas of downsizing during the Great Recession: crisis strategies of European employers. De Economist, 161, 3, 307–29.Google Scholar
Van Dalen, H. P., Henkens, K. and Schippers, J. 2010. Productivity of older workers: perceptions of employers and employees. Population and Development Review, 36, 2, 309–30.Google Scholar
Wald, S. 2005. The impact of overqualification on job search. International Journal of Manpower, 26, 2, 140–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallander, L. 2009. 25 years of factorial surveys in sociology: a review. Social Science Research, 38, 3, 505–20.Google Scholar
Wanberg, C. R., Kanfer, R., Hamann, D. J. and Zhang, Z. 2016. Age and reemployment success after job loss: an integrative model and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 142, 4, 400–26.Google Scholar
Wang, M., Olson, D. and Shultz, K. 2013. Mid and Late Career Issues: An Integrative Perspective. Psychology Press, New York.Google Scholar
Wheaton, F. and Crimmins, E. M. 2013. The demography of aging and retirement. In Wang, M. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Retirement. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 22–41.Google Scholar