Attractive recruitment signals for migrants: A qualitative study on the attractiveness of public employer signals, targeted recruitment signals, and specific signals for migrants

Author(s) : Katharina Weber

Source : https://www.rechtswissenschaft.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/fak_rechtwis/content/e6024/e6025/e118744/e1190006/e1190017/files1190084/Weber_Katharina_Masterarbeit_15.09.2021_ger.pdf

“Migrants (foreign–born individuals) are underrepresented in the workforce of Switzerland’s public administrations. Consistent with the theory of representative bureaucracy, this underrepresentation could lead to unfavorable policy outcomes and unequal access to institutions for migrants. If a public administration is not representative of the society it serves, this could lead to lower legitimacy and credibility in society. This underrepresentation has many causes, and one way to counteract this underrepresentation is to tailor the recruitment signals to target migrants to attract them to the public organization. In the early recruitment phase, attractive signals for migrants can be integrated into the recruitment material. However, these attractive signals must first be empirically evaluated. In an exploratory qualitative study using a semi–structured interview guide, five skilled job–seeking migrants residing in Switzerland, originally from different parts of the world, were interviewed. The results show that the two most important and common concerns of these five respondents were language skills and experiences of discrimination.”