The interaction of attraction and selection: Implications for college recruitment and Schneider's ASA model

New college graduates are an important source of hires in large firms. Of interest to organisational decision makers are how the individual-difference profiles of soon-to-be college graduates that are likely to be attracted to, and selected by, the organisation compare with the profiles of the overall applicant population. In this research, we investigated how self-reported attraction to an organisation, achievement of a passing score on an organisation's screening device, and the interaction of these two variables related to the individual-difference profiles of 223 senior-level college undergraduates. Results indicated that those who were attracted to the organisation differed from those who were not attracted. Those who would be screened in for further selection by the organisation differed from those who would be rejected. However, the interaction of attraction and screening was unrelated to any of the individual differences. Moreover, attraction and screening did not interact to restrict variance on any of the individual-difference variables. These results provide a new perspective on the effects hypothesised in B. Schneider's (1987) Attraction-Selection-Attrition model. Implications for this model and for recruiting from the college student population are discussed.