ABSTRACT
In examining the results of the study of the middle managers and technical specialists at Octane Limited, the possibility occurred to senior management and the researcher that at the stage of initial recruitment Octane Limited might have tended to overemphasise opportunities within the company. Members of the personnel department confirmed in discussion that, in the stress of competing with other employers for the cream of the crop of new graduates and school leavers, it was possible that those responsible for recruiting were unduly optimistic in discussions with prospective recruits. The researcher believed that, in general, recruiting advertisements for management trainees and the like emphasised glowing prospects, ‘selling’ careers which only a few would probably experience. The researcher's own experience of several years as an adviser in industrial selection schemes led him to conclude that the potential recruit wanted to believe in these possibilities, and often had quite unrealistic notions of what his abilities were and where these might take him. The researcher believed that the potential recruit was likely to collude with the persons recruiting him in an over-favourable estimate of his probable long-term organisational fate, and possibly to put an over-optimistic construction on what had been conveyed to him, or on what he felt had been conveyed. In justifying his career choice to himself and others the new recruit would possibly be prone, at acceptance of his initial appointment, to emphasise the bright side of his prospects. In this way the recruiting process in itself began to generate and support high aspirations in the new recruit.
