To promote SME growth, it is essential to attract young, educated minds to work for them. Recent graduates often view employment in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) as a “second choice”, and prefer to work for multinational corporations )MNCs). This study uses a job attributes model to address the inability of SMEs to attract business graduates. The first part of the study investigates the importance of nine job attributes to graduates in initial job selections, and their perceptions of these attributes offered by SMEs and MNCs. The second part of the study reports that SME employer perceptions of the attractiveness of these attributes are very much different from those of the graduates. Finally, recruitment packages of SMEs and MNCs are compared, and attributes such as job security and long‐term career prospects are found to be better in SMEs, thus suggesting that SME owners must communicate more effectively with graduates.

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract Based on an earlier policy-capturing study of the Big Five personality traits and general mental ability, this paper explores and analyzes the hiring preference of Hong Kong employers across five important personal attributes, including not only personality but also practical skill dimensions. The preferences and trade-offs of 300 experienced recruiters were obtained via conjoint analysis, a theoretically grounded statistical tool that is used to discompose and analyze decisions, for assessing the hiring decisions for entry-level professional positions. Among knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality, the personality of a candidate has a relatively greater impact on the hiring decision. Three of the Big Five personality traits were elected from among five major hiring attributes for effective performance, with conscientiousness being the most dominant attribute across all eight major industries. The other attributes, in order of importance, include English communication skills, openness to new experiences, academic performance, and agreeableness. Discrepancies between intended and actual decisions were also addressed by comparing the results with self-reported ratings.Sun Tzu's Art of War argues that if you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you know neither others nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every battle. For recent graduates, getting hired can mean winning the first important battle in their career. To win, a graduate needs to know what employers demand and what he/she can supply in return. With business downsizing, today's leaner organizations need to hire "high-value" individuals to maximize the contribution of their human assets. Despite the current uncertain employment market, there are still many excellent opportunities for qualified university graduates who possess the skills and traits for which employers are searching.A great deal of published research on selection has been geared towards understanding the relationship between personality constructs and job performance (Barrick and Mount, 1991;Goldberg, 1990;Hough et al., 1990). Certain ...

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institutional pillars, organizational corruption,