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Realistic Job Previews have been shown to impact newcomers to jobs through ircreased self-selection, reduced turnover, eased adjustment, improved performance and increased job satisfaction. To address a turnover problem, Realistic Job Previews were implemented in hiring for two entry level positions in half of 539 branch offices of a large financial services organization. Subjects consisted of 122 Service Representatives and 98 Financial Representatives. Eight months after implementation, turnover rates were compared for control and experimental groups. There was no significant difference between turnover among Service Representatives. Financial Representatives in the experimental group had lower turnover rates (p < .10), with the difference increasing over time. Comparing the turnover rates between three and six months tenure resulted in a statistically significant difference (p < .05).

The state of Texas reflects the teacher shortages experienced by the rest of the United States. The three studies included in this dissertation use exploratory mixed-methods and qualitative research designs to understand experiences of Texas high school science teachers at the entry stage of the teacher professional continuum (TPC): recruitment. Little is understood about the relationship between recruitment, job satisfaction and retention of teachers. A conceptual framework (i.e., teacher-to-school match, realistic job previews, decision factors) was used to guide the inquiry process and help draw connections between the literature and findings from this study regarding teacher recruitment, job satisfaction, and retention. This research was completed in collaboration with the PRISE Research Group at Texas A&M University. The first study describes recruitment activities of new-to-school science teachers for their current positions. A content analysis of teachers' interviews suggested that schools are not maximizing valuable resources supporting teacher-to-school match and realistic job previews (RJP). Further analyses indicated teachers' interview experiences and participation in various types of RJP activities were associated with minority student enrollment profile (MSEP) and size of school. The second study explores reasons for teachers' decisions to accept their positions. New-to-school teachers indicated 12 categories of reasons. Subjective factors relating to non-pecuniary aspects of the job were reported by teachers more frequently than objective or critical contact factors. Teachers' responses for accepting their positions were found to be associated with MSEP and size of school. The third study describes recruitment experiences of highly satisfied and retained new-to-school teachers. Trends were identified regarding teachers' match to schools, engagement in RJP activities, and use of decision factors. Findings from this study direct researchers towards new questions with regard to teacher recruitment as a leveraging factor for job satisfaction and retention. The final chapter provides a summary of all three studies. Recommendations are made to stakeholders regarding progressive recruitment practices and policies for high school science teachers. Concurrently, themes in this chapter provide researchers with a topology for the design of future studies addressing teacher shortages on campus using the initial stage of the TPC: recruitment.

Potential employees use organization career webpages as a first source of information about potential jobs. A content analysis of the career webpages of twenty organizations that recruit from male-dominant occupations and twenty organizations that recruit for female-dominant occupations were examined for gender-specific textual markers and for textual markers for the characteristics of job expectations of comfort, reward and responsibility. Specific focus was made on college recruitment pages for employment into first post-college jobs. This study found that there is an underlying gender issue on organization’s college recruiting online presence. Organizations that have a recruitment strategy to hire women are challenged to appropriately appeal to women in their online recruitment messaging frameworks. Additionally, the rhetoric of job expectations is elusive and so is inadequate to foster the development of accurate expectations for a first post-college job.