Healthy lifestyle is a signal: How applicants’ healthy lifestyle information affects recruiter judgments

Abstract

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle can promote the quality of individuals’ performance in professional domains. Based on signaling theory and similarity-attraction theory, we examined whether information concerning job applicants’ lifestyles can influence recruiter evaluations. In Pilot Study 1a, a field survey revealed that applicants’ healthy lifestyles were positively associated with job performance in the workplace via vigor. We then conducted follow-up experiments, which revealed that if the professional participants (e.g., hiring managers) and full-time employees received information that indicated that applicants had a healthy lifestyle, they were more likely to provide favorable hirability-related judgments via perceptions of applicants’ vigor. Furthermore, recruiters’ healthy lifestyles can moderate the relationship between applicants’ healthy lifestyles and recruiter evaluations, in such a way that recruiters are more likely to evaluate healthy applicants positively when they have healthier lifestyles. We end by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of this research.