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Sound or Shady: Influences of Online Personal Credibility on the
Screening Process in Recruitment
Master Thesis Business Administration, Marketing Track
ABSTRACT
Social networking sites (SNS’s), e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, are very popular online
communication tools. In recruitment procedures the use of these sites has officially
surpassed the online job boards as the preferred way of acquiring talent. However, little is
known on how recruiters employ these social networking sites and how they assess the
credibility of the information provided. Although research has been done on online
credibility on corporate issues and levels, there has been very limited research on how
credibility of personal online social media profiles affects the screening process in
recruitment, while it is well possible that credibility plays a major role in these processes.
Thus, the challenge offered by the use of these profiles is to establish how well they provide
trustworthy and valid, job-‐relevant information.
In this study, credibility will be researched in two principal domains: source credibility
and medium credibility. The factors contributing to the source and medium credibility of an
online personal brand and how this credibility affects the screening in a recruitment
procedure are studied. In order to research this topic an extensive literature review has
been carried out based on the different aspects of the research. Furthermore, a qualitative
data analysis has been done by interviewing ten recruitment experts. The findings of the
interviews have resulted in six returning themes that contribute to source and medium
credibility according to the recruitment experts. These themes are: references; verification
of information; identification of profile characteristics; online medium features & character;
medium utilization; and online and offline differences.
Key words: Social Media, Social Networking Sites, Recruitment, Screening Process, Hiring
Decision, Personal Branding, Source credibility, Personal Credibility, Medium Credibility.
Supervisor: Dr. Hsin-‐Hsuan Lee
Student Name: Vincent Alexander Eernstman
Email: veernstman@gmail.com
Student Number: 10661255
Date: 29-‐06-‐2015
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Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Vincent Eernstman who declares
to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is
original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text
and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the
supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
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Preface
This study is my final research report of the Master of Science in Business Administration
with an emphasis in Marketing at the University of Amsterdam. The research contains an
analysis of the various aspects of online information credibility provided by potential job-‐
seeking candidates in a personal brand and how this constitutes to the screening process of
recruiters. Much of the knowledge that I have obtained during the MSc in Business
Administration at the University of Amsterdam is applied in this thesis.
The purpose of writing this thesis is to add a perspective on the influences of credibility on
the screening procedures in a recruitment process. This is done through a qualitative
research where several recruitment experts have been interviewed in order to gather data
and draw conclusions for this research.
First of all, I would like to express my gratefulness to Dr. Hsin-‐Hsuan Lee, who has provided
me with consistently high quality feedback and guidance throughout the thesis period. Her
bright remarks and advises have helped me through the challenging times of my research.
Furthermore, I would like to thank the MSc Business Administration professors who have
supported me throughout this academic program. This journey has been a great experience
in which much valuable lessons are learned and different perspectives on relevant subjects
are provided. It really has been a privilege to study at the University of Amsterdam and this
experience has provided me a foundation for future steps in life.
Last, I would like to thank all participants for their great input in this research. Without their
insights it would have never been possible to write this thesis.
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Table of Contents
Preface 3
Table of Contents 4
Table of Figures 5
1. Introduction 6
2. Literature review 11
2.1 Social Media and Social Networking Sites 11
2.2 Social Networking Sites 12
2.3 Prospective Employees and Social Media 13
2.4 Challenges in Recruitment Through Social Media 15
2.5 Personal Branding 17
2.6 Credibility and Message Communication 21
2.6.1 Credibility 23
2.6.2 Source Credibility 24
2.6.3 Medium Credibility 27
3. Research methodology 32 3.1 Interview Procedure 34
4. Analysis 36 4.1 Participants 36
4.2 Themes 37
Theme 1: References 37
Theme 2: Verification of Information 39
Theme 3: Identification of Profile Characteristics 40
4.2.2 Medium credibility 44
Theme 1: Character of Medium, Personal / Professional 44
Theme 2: Medium Utilization 47
Theme 3: Online / Offline Information 50
5. Propositions 52
Source Credibility 52
Medium Credibility 57
6. Conclusion 60
7. Contributions 64
8. Further Research and Limitations 66
9. References 68
Appendices 77
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Appendix 2, Schematic Overview on the Background per Participant (P) 80
Appendix 3, SNS Usage per Participant (P) 81
Appendix 4, Coding Scheme 81
Appendix 5, Interview Transcriptions 86
Participant 1 86
Participant 2 88
Participant 3 92
Participant 4 96
Participant 5 100
Participant 6 104
Participant 7 107
Participant 8 111
Participant 9 114
Participant 10 117
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Model of Communication 22
Figure 2: Theoretical Framework 31
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1. Introduction
Recent research by The American Society for Training & Development states that Social
Networking Sites (henceforward ‘SNS’) like LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook have officially
surpassed the online job boards as the preferred way of acquiring talent. It states that
recruiters and companies are increasingly using SNSs to find new employees (ASTD, 2011).
According to Dan Finnigan (the CEO of Jobvite) the fastest growing companies increasingly
use the publicly available profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to develop valuable
talent pools for new hires (Jobvite, 2011). Furthermore, according to Shelley Gorman
(director of career management at the UNC-‐Kenan-‐Flager Business School) using social
media for recruiting purposes is very effective for a number of reasons: it expands the
applicant pool, allows employers to reach international candidates, and the technology is
extremely cost-‐effective (Gorman, 2011). Based on these figures and statements it seems to
be of utmost importance to raise one’s profile on the Internet as well as proactively manage
and promote it when looking for a new position.
Socrates stated around 2400 years ago: “the way to gain a good reputation is to
endeavour to be what you desire to appear” (Karaduman, 2013: 1). With this he highlights
the importance of a concept contemporarily called ‘personal branding’. This is the process
whereby people in general are marked as brands (Karaduman, 2013; Seidman, 2012;
Labrecque, 2011.). Every single person is unique in its own way, each with its own physical
characteristics, skills, experiences and education thus every single person may use these
properties to create his own unique personal brand. However, a brand is only of use if it is
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visible to others; making the brand known through decent and proactive management and
an effective promotion is therefore essential (Karaduman, 2013; Dutta, 2010.). Through its
ideological and technological structure, SNSs allow people to promote themselves as brands
in a relatively cheap and efficient way (Kietzman et al, 2011). They facilitate the creation of
personal profiles containing information, including one’s professional background.
According to the literature, credibility plays a crucial role in corporate branding; it
positively affects the purchase intention of the consumer through a higher perceived quality,
a saving of information costs and a reduction of perceived risk (Erdem & Swait, 1998; Baek
et. al., 2010). This may also be the case with personal branding (ibid.).
Traditionally, mainly professional knowledge workers such as publishers, editors,
reviewers, news reporters and librarians have maintained the credibility of information by
acting as gatekeepers of information (Rieh & Danielson, 2007). Nowadays, the online web
2.0 era offers a vast amount of information assessed through a wide variety of systems and
resources, this information has a high chance of being incomplete, out of date, inaccurate or
simply poorly organized (Janes & Rosenfeld, 1996). With the emergence of the Internet,
information supplied on the web is becoming increasingly important. The World Wide Web
gave access to exponentially growing information sources that, however, in many cases are
lacking tools for checking their content on reliability (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Fog et. al.,
2001). This is also true for information revealed on a personal brand. Now we see the
appearance of companies, like Reputation.com and Axciom that have started exploiting
these market niches by collecting, analysing and selling personal data, socalled “data-‐
miners”, or “data-‐brokers”.
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Although a research field has been developed on online credibility on the corporate
level, there has been very limited research on how credibility of personal online social media
profiles affects the screening process in recruitment, while it is well possible that credibility
plays a major role when recruiters are screening social media profiles. Thus, the challenge
offered by the use of these profiles is to establish how well they provide trustworthy and
valid, job-‐relevant information. Screening information of a potential candidate’s online
personal brand is becoming an issue for recruiters as the information displayed has a high
chance of being less credible. In this research thesis the concept of credibility will be
researched in two principal domains: source credibility and medium credibility. The source
and medium credibility are key factors recruiters keep in mind when reviewing candidates
(Allgeier, 2009). Source credibility is the degree to which people believe and trust what other
people and organizations tell them about a particular product, brand or service (Cambridge,
2011). Medium credibility can be defined as the degree to which a method or way of
expressing something can be believed or trusted
(Cambridge, 2011).
In conclusion this thesis will focus on how recruiters screen the background of
potential jobseekers through social media, considering that companies are using social
media as the main source for the screening procedure to an even greater extend (Davison,
2011; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Wright 2011). As a result the research aims to address the
following research question:
How does online personal credibility influence the screening process in recruitment
and what factors contribute to this credibility?
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To answer the research question four sub-‐questions were established:
-‐ How does online source credibility influence the screening process?
-‐ How does online medium credibility influence the screening process?
-‐ What criteria do recruiters employ to assess the credibility of recruiter’s online information?
-‐ How do these criteria differ from offline criteria?
By answering these questions the research will be able to contribute to the literature stream
in several ways. With this research we may contribute in a practical way to
recommendations as to how job seekers can improve their personal credibility, thereby
improving their personal brand and thus have a higher chance of being considered for job
openings. But it may also contribute to recruiters who will benefit by receiving guidelines as
to how one might assess credibility of online profiles. Furthermore on a more theoretical
level the research contributes to the field of online information credibility in general and
draws some conclusions in relation to the discipline of marketing and more specifically to
the subject of personal branding. No prior research has been done on the credibility
assessment of online personal brands and how recruiters judge candidate’s information.
Lastly the study contributes to managerial problems as the results will help to identify ethical
and moral issues in screening processes when reviewing a potential candidate’s (personal)
information.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the different
aspects we need to understand in order to answer the research questions. Previous research
will be used that has been implemented on: social media, screening processes in
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recruitment, challenges of using social networking sites in recruitment, communication and
credibility, source credibility and medium credibility. Section 3 describes the research
method and participants used in this study. In section 4, an extensive analysis of the
evidence can be found. Section 5 outlines the propositions created based on this research. In
section 6 the conclusion is outlined, section 7 shows the contributions to the existing
literature and section 8 contains any limitations of the study, which lead to further research
recommendations.
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2. Literature review
2.1 Social Media and Social Networking Sites
The Internet has become the most essential component in the navigation of everyday
normal life (Amichai-‐Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010).
Internet influences all aspects of human
behaviour from the way people interact or spend their leisure time to the way in which
corporations operate (Hughes, 2012). Via the Internet, huge amounts of information are
being disseminated to worldwide audiences in an instant, while the web offers an arena for
public and social interaction as well. At the ground of online information transfer and social
interaction lies the most popular and fastest growing type of Internet site: Social media
(Nielsen-‐Wire, 2010). Social media is defined as collaborative online applications and
technologies that enable connectivity, participation, sharing of information, user-‐generated
content, and collaboration amongst community of users (Henderson & Bowley, 2010). These
include social networking sites, wikis, blogs, podcasts, vidcasts, vlogs, mashups,
folksonomies and online virtual worlds (Henderson & Bowley, 2010).
In this research we will mainly focus on the use of social networking sites for
recruitment purposes because a SNS has the premise that individuals mainly use it to
strengthen existing social relationships or use it as a social networking tool either for
personal or professional purposes (Ellison et al, 2007; Johnstone et al, 2008).
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2.2 Social Networking Sites
SNSs can be defined as a group of Internet-‐based applications that build on the ideological
and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-‐
generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). They are virtual collections of user-‐profiles,
which may be shared with other people. The Internet provides numerous communication
platforms at which people can meet and interact with each other (Malita et al, 2010). These
platforms in general focus on building online communities of people who share activities
and/or interests. These services consist of the representation of a user, often in the form of
a profile (ibid.) and offer various ways for users to interact over the Internet through text,
photo or video messaging (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
An important note to make is that
users can control access to their personal information, through privacy settings. However
research done by Dwyer et al (2007) shows that users are not exercising their right to
privacy, with 100 % of participants to a survey revealing their real name on Facebook online.
The social networking tool refers to the possibility of connections between strangers
as well as those who already have had a relationship with each other and allows SNS to be
defined specifically as sites for networking and connecting with people (Beer, 2008).
With the rise of SNSs, the amount of personal data such as employment history,
interests and education are online available for all to see. This gives recruiters a greater
insight into the candidate’s skills and personality and many potential employees may find
themselves being contacted proactively through SNSs for job opportunities they were not
aware of because their profile matched a recruiter’s search on a SNS (Doherty, 2010). This
way SNSs are becoming an essential tool for companies that try to interact with passive
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candidates, who are employed not actively looking for a new opportunity (ibid.). It might be
the case that these prospective employees do not have an updated CV because they have
been working for the same company for several years, however they do have extensive
information stored on SNSs that can be found and used for human resource purposes.
According to the research done by Stepstone.com SNSs are used in the full
recruitment process in many ways, but they are mostly used for: attracting potential
applicants by creating and displaying the employer brand, finding suitable potential
employees through direct search, searching for more background information on
prospective employees, and posting jobs in social network communities (Stepstone, 2013).
2.3 Prospective Employees and Social Media
In this study the screening process refers to all existing profiles of job seeking candidates
that have been uncovered during either online or offline searches and that fit the position to
be filled with regard to experience, education, background etcetera. After all it is the
recruiter’s task to screen the background of the potential candidates and establish his or her
fit for the position and company.
During the recruitment process, organizations might request references from the job
seeker (Foote & Robinson, 1999). However with the existence of SNS, people’s lives and
professional profiles are publicly available and more easily accessible. Employers or
recruiters that check applicants’ profiles gain different information than they collect from
offline information like CVs (Breaugh & Stark, 2000). This might lead to a positive effect on
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the hiring decision but can also lead to rejection of the candidate (Stepstone, 2013). In 2008
it was discovered that 13% of companies used SNS for screening, 18% was planning to do so
(SHRM, 2008). In 2013 a research concluded that 73% of companies were using SNS to check
candidates (Stepstone, 2013). A survey done by Jobvite (2012) found that for organisations
engaged in the practice of using social media to screen job applicants the most important
factor for using SNS was obtaining information beyond what was stated in a cover letter or
CV (70% of participants of survey). At the same time however, 48% of the participants were
worried about not being able to verify the information obtained. Davison et al. (2011) in this
context confirm that the information potential candidates choose to share on SNSs can be
edited or be one-‐sided to make their profile more attractive. This means that it may not be
possible to verify if the information obtained is accurate.
Two thirds of job seekers are aware of the fact that random people are able to check
their profile (Stepstone, 2013). These job seekers know that the information on their
profile(s) can have an impact on their hiring chances, and a third of the job seekers modify
their profile to raise their chances. Whether social media profiles of the applicants improve
the chances to be hired remains to be seen. The survey revealed that the information
retrieved from social media profiles had a positive influence on the hiring decision in almost
half of the cases (Stepstone, 2013). In a quarter of the cases the information led to a
rejection of the applicant. The same survey concluded that the most positive influence of
social media information on the hiring decision was that the profile supported professional
qualifications. The publication of inappropriate pictures was found to be the most negative
influence.
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Using SNS for HR decisions has become a common practice (Davison et. al., 2011).
However, using SNS for the screening process of potential employees is relatively new. A
study in 2008 revealed that 34% of organizations were using SNS to recruit or contact
potential applicants and 19% were planning to use them (SHRM, 2008).
Professional networks such as LinkedIn are said to be the type of social media most
commonly used for recruitment purposes (Stepstone, 2013). In 2013, 64% of companies
were using LinkedIn to find new talent, making it the most popular SNS for recruitment
purposes (Stepstone, 2013; Broughton & Foley, 2013). 41% uses Facebook and 29% are
using Twitter for finding future employees. Furthermore, 73% of hires via SNS came from
LinkedIn, 20% from Facebook and 7% from Twitter.
Thus, Companies are increasingly reaching out to socially connected job seekers
(TNS, 2013). Social media presents an opportunity for extra reach for both the organization
as well as the job seeker. Whenever there is a job opening, it’s most effective to use as many
channels as possible to make the most out of the recruitment campaign (Kaplan & Haenlein,
2010). Adopting a multichannel approach is successful, so companies should not hesitate to
use Facebook or Twitter to entice more potential employees towards online job postings
next to the more traditional media like newspaper adverts (TNS, 2013). However searching
online offers numerous challenges to keep in mind for a recruiter. In the next part we will go
deeper into this issue.
2.4 Challenges in Recruitment Through Social Media
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While there are many advantages of the concept of recruitment using SNSs, it is also
important to consider the challenges. The recruitment specialist may want to develop and
use various tools and instruments to screen different potential candidates for a vacancy.
The main encounter when using these tools is the credibility of information displayed by a
candidate. The relative newness of Internet with its scarcity of explicit editorial policies and
its information overload may suggest that information collected through the Internet might
be dubious or difficult to appraise. We will go deeper into this issue later on in the research.
Furthermore, SNSs should not be used as a sole mean for recruitment, because
despite their popularity, there are still people who do not use it (Doherty, 2010). Recruiters
should therefore be careful in neglecting these people and having the risk of missing out on
great talent. In addition, SNSs have transformed how we communicate and as these tools
become regular for professional purposes, the boundaries between private and professional
information are blurred, raising moral and ethical questions (ibid.). Organizations must be
very careful when using public, non-‐professional information to support a neglecting
decision.
Since the arrival of SNSs many organizations have treated them with suspicion and
often made it the responsibility of the human resource department to police its use
internally (Doherty, 2010). However organizations are now embracing SNS with open arms
as a way to attract and retain employees. The use of SNSs in recruitment is a very active and
fast-‐moving domain. Thus, what may be up-‐to-‐date today could have disappeared from the
virtual landscape tomorrow. Therefore it is crucial for recruitment firms to create a set of
guidelines that can be applied to any form of SNS in the recruitment or screening process.
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Another challenge in using SNSs for recruitment purposes is relying on different
applications in order to create the most complete picture of a candidate (Kapenlan &
Haenlein, 2010). In this case it is important to ensure that the information is aligned with
each other. A recruiter might use different SNSs to create an extensive profile. This may
seem as a worthwhile and profitable strategy, but the goal of recruitment is the resolution of
ambiguity and reduction of uncertainty (ibid.), and contradicting messages may create
confusion. In summary the main challenge to SNSs, that recruitment specialists are
confronted with, is the credibility assessment of the information displayed on a person’s
profile. This issue will be researched in this paper, but first we need to understand how
potential candidates make and maintain an online personal profile by equating it with online
personal branding.
2.5 Personal Branding
As stated before, although primarily designed for socialising with friends and family, Social
Networking Sites are increasingly recognized as an important professional tool, particularly
in the field of recruitment (Girard et al, 2014; Karaduman, 2013). They seem to serve two
main purposes. Firstly, they function as a marketing instrument (Sivertzen et al, 2013).
Jobseekers use these networks to market themselves to potential employers and vice versa.
Secondly, they serve as a screening mechanism for employers; the latter may use
information available on the web to cheaply and easily gain a more detailed image of a
potential employee than is available through traditional recruitment methods (Labrecque,
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2010). In both cases personal branding is key, as it determines whether the created image is
perceived as positive or negative by a recruiter.
Personal branding is a new marketing concept related to a marketing strategy that a
person adopts in order to promote him or herself in a market. Personal branding has
achieved huge popularity in the last decade due to the rising number of books, web sites,
magazines, training programs and specialized literature about how exactly to brand oneself
for success in the business world (Montoya, 2002; Arruda & Dixson, 2007). The key premise
of personal branding is that anyone can be considered as a brand, and everyone has a
personal brand regardless of its age, position or industry he or she works in (Peters, 1997).
Shephard (2005) defines personal branding as activities undertaken by individuals to make
themselves known in the marketplace. Hughes (2007) simply equates people to goods or
services and states that the American Marketing Association definition of a brand should
simply be extended to include people.
Most people are not aware of their personal brand or do not manage it strategically,
consistently, and effectively (Ramparsad, 2009). However personal branding becomes a very
important marketing tool for people and it has accelerated in SNSs (Shepherd, 2005). The
rise of SNS has formed a need for a deeper analysis of building personal brands not just for
social but as well as for professional purposes. The emergence of the web 2.0 with social
media such as Google, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter made it virtually impossible for
anyone to keep from creating a personal brand, whether they give permission or not
(Vaselou & Joinson, 2009; Labrecque et al, 2011). Individuals not aware in the discipline of
marketing might often participate in the act of marketing (either positive or negative)
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without them knowing to do so.
Establishing a unique personal brand by developing an active communication of one’s
brand and by evaluating its impact on ones image and reputation to fulfil professional
objectives is what we discuss in this research paper. This process involves three phases just
like any other (corporate) brand, the first phase is to establish a brand identity, the second is
to develop the brand’s positioning and the third is to evaluate the brand’s image (Khedher,
2014).
Personal brand identity starts with establishing an inventory of attributes, beliefs,
motives, values, and experiences in terms of which people define themselves in a role
(Mcnally & Speak, 2002). People creating personal brands should differentiate themselves to
stand out from a crowd while fitting expectations and needs of their target market (ibid.)
This especially is a crucial part in this study, as differentiating your personal brand in the
employment market is crucial to get hired by an employer.
Personal brand positioning refers to the active marketing communications of a brand
identity to a specific target market. People should use brand positioning to highlight their
best attributes that are value to their target audience while differentiating themselves from
other people in the same marketplace (Khedher, 2014). In other words the positioning
occurs through the self-‐presentation, nonverbal cues, verbal disclosures, and actions to
shape the perception of others’ about your competence, character and ability to meet the
standards (Roberts, 2005).
Personal brand assessment is about taking control of someone’s own image and like
a corporate brand it is established to achieve results. People who construct viable
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professional images are mostly perceived as being capable of meeting any goals. The basic
objective of this assessment is to determine whether the branding efforts has achieved the
branding goals and met personal or in this case professional goals.
The business world is gradually recognizing the importance of controlling personal
brands and offering strategic advice about how one can project a desired brand identity
through the use of different social media (Labercque et al. 2011; Safko & Brake 2009;
Schwabel 2009). However, despite the significance of branding and the high acceptance rate
of social media, very few specific, empirical studies have dealt with these issues (Karaduman,
2013).
Fertik (2015) argues that a person’s online reputation has never been more
important. Every time you go online he states that your digital footprint increases
exponentially and it is only a matter of time that everyone receives a reputation score. Fertik
(2015) even proclaims that a person’s reputation is becoming more valuable than money or
power. As well as Gorbis (2013) who states that your social connection will matter just as
much as your money on your back account. Furthermore Fertik (2015) says that at present
when a person applies for a job, its CV might undergo some automated screening which
leads to computers becoming involved in the recruitment process what he calls: “decision
almost made by machine”. He advises that individuals looking to give their reputation a
brush-‐up to join as many SNSs as possible and saturate them with positive content about
yourself. On the other side, Davison (2011) argues that using SNSs for screening purposes is
usually not a formal aspect of the recruitment process.
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profitability as it offers people a way to theorize and negotiate in the employment landscape
(Lair et al, 2005). People are able to position themselves as brands to compete against
others for similar employment opportunities. Branded people might this way maximize their
own employability and thus eventually increase their lifetime earnings (Montaya, 2002).
Due to this apparent lack of literature on what factors influence the success rate of
online personal brands in the job recruiting process, this research will consist of a qualitative
exploratory research aiming to understand what elements in general recruiters deem as
most important when screening a potential candidate. At the same time however, through
this literature review, one factor has been found to be an important decisive factor in the
screening process and will therefore form the core of the research: “credibility”. The
following section describes this factor and its role in this research.
2.6 Credibility and Message Communication
To explain the concept of credibility we first need to understand how messages are being
created. Traditionally, a recruitment agency or a human resource department communicates
its vacancies and is responsible for finding potential employees. This communication process
consists of three main concepts: the source, the message and the receiver. In this research
the source is referred to as the online personal profile of a potential candidate, and the
receiver is referred to as the recruiter.
Shannon-‐Weaver (1948) illustrates this in The Model of Communication (see figure
1). The source needs to deliver a message and has to encode it by means of a format (form,
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content and channel). When reached by a receiver, the message will be decoded and
interpreted. Whether the interpreted message is the same as the message sent by the
source, depends on how the message is encoded and decoded (Shannon-‐Weaver, 1948).
Figure 1, Model of Communication (Shannon-‐Weaver, 1948)
A medium must be chosen to fit the message that is sent. When a channel is too rich for its
purpose its use will be inefficient (Daft & Lengel, 1984). According to Kaplan and Haenlein
(2010) SNSs can be seen as medium rich channels in terms of the Media Richness Theory.
Thus, it is not needed and moreover not possible to use a rich medium for every message,
but a medium should be chosen that fits the message. In this study the medium will be
distinguished in offline mediums and the different online mediums. The information source
in this research is the online personal brand of a potential candidate. The channel is either
an online or offline medium. And the receiver is the recruiter. We will focus on the perceived
credibility of the information sent from sender to receiver and what contributes to this
credibility. In the following part credibility will be explained thoroughly.
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2.6.1 Credibility
Credibility has been defined as trust, believability, reliability, accuracy, objectivity, fairness,
and many other concepts (Self, 1996). It also has been defined in terms of features of
persuasive sources, characteristics of the message structure and content, and perceptions of
media (Metzger et al, 2003). Despite the fact that communication researchers have been
concerned with source credibility since the 1950s, there is still no clear definition of
credibility. The main view across definitions is believability (Fogg et al, 2001; Hilligoss & Rieh,
2007). Credible people are believable people, and credible information is believable
information (Tseng & Fogg, 1999). Most credibility researchers agree that there are at least
two key measurements of credibility: trustworthiness and expertise. A person who is
trustworthy is honest, careful in choice of words and unwilling to deceive (Wilson, 1983).
Information is trustworthy when it seems to be reliable, unbiased and fair. Expertise is “the
perceived knowledge, skill, and experience of the source” (Fogg, 2003). When people find
that sources have expertise, they are likely to judge that the information is trustworthy and
thus, in the case of a recruiting process, an organization is more likely to accept a potential
candidate to fill a vacancy.
The concept of credibility has been discussed at least since Aristotle’s examination of
ethos and his opinions of speakers’ relative skills to persuade listeners (Rieh, 2007).
Disciplinary approaches to investigate credibility systematically developed in the last
century, starting in the field of (offline) communication. The influence of various
characteristics of a source on a recipient’s message acceptance is an important topic among
the study of credibility (Hovland et al, 1953; Rimmer & Weaver, 1987). Communication
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VINCENT EERNSTMAN, 2015
researchers have tended to emphasize on sources and media, seeing credibility as a
perceived characteristic.
Credibility has received considerable attention since the last twenty years when the
Internet started providing a new information interaction environment that allowed users to
seek for information and communicate with others in ways never possible before (Kiousis,
2009). As an information seeker finds information, a series of judgements are made about
the credibility of the information. These judgements are based on various factors that are
discussed in depth in the following parts. In summary, the judgements comprise the
credibility assessment, which leads to the decision to accept or reject information.
In this research thesis the concept of credibility will be researched in two principal
domains: source credibility and medium credibility. Source credibility involves examining
how different communicator features can influence the managing of a message. The
communicator in this study is defined as the individual that portrays its information in online
(personal) profiles. Medium credibility on the other hand focuses more on the channel
through which content is delivered rather than the dispatcher of that content.
2.6.2 Source Credibility
Marketing researchers have found out that the concept of source credibility is a very
powerful facility for influencing consumers (Eisend, 2004). Whenever a consumer perceives
a source as having the highest credibility compared to other sources, the consumer is much
more receptive to messages and is more likely to be persuaded and thus has a higher chance
to consume. However whereas the concept of source credibility hasn’t changed over time,
consumers and consumption behaviour did change during the last decades. The
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