Advice‐seeking and advice‐utilization for hiring decisions: An investigation of a partially outsourced recruitment process for rank‐and‐file managers

We study a large-scale, partially outsourced recruitment process. A specialized con-sultancy assesses applicants' soft-skills on behalf of a client firm, who retains agencyover the hiring decision. We conceptualize this collaboration as an advice-seeking,advice-utilization process and analyze the effectiveness of hiring recommendationsprovided in influencing the client's hiring decisions. Two external HR specialists notonly differ in their soft skill ratings, but also differ in their aggregation of these ratingsinto their hiring recommendations. The consultants' recommendations are particu-larly helpful in separating very suitable from clearly unsuitable candidates but are lesseffective in the mid-tier of the skill distribution.