Section Fourrecruiting sources.^25 Unfortunately, as with most of the research
in this area, it is difficult to generalize from such results. In this
case, the subjects were highly educated research personnel.
Employees having doctorates are often active in professional
associations that have well-developed job placement services at
their conventions. Such employees might likely have a training
deficiency if they do not understand how placement works in
the professional discipline.
The study pointed out an interesting possible explanation
for differentials in recruiting source success. The potential
explanation was that the various recruiting sources provide
differing amounts of information about companies and jobs.
Those sources associated with greater applicant information
produced better results because self-selection led to better job
and applicant matching.^26 However, a more recent study was
unable to lend support to the differential knowledge and self-
selection explanation. Because of the equivocal nature of the
literature and a failure to find any relationships between
recruiting sources and performance, this same study concluded
that it is probably counterproductive to attempt to identify
differentials in success rates across various sources of recruits.
Instead, the study recommended that companies focus on
those characteristics of individual applicants that are stronger
predictors of job performance.^27