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IntroductionAs Messersmith and Guthrie (2010) demonstrate, the creation and staffing of a first-rate human resources function is often critical for startups wishing to grow their business. Creating and sustaining a strong innovation culture in startups depends on the ability to hire employees who share values that fit well with the organization. To do so, high quality potential employees first must be attracted to the organization. Recruitment is a critical determinant of applicant attraction (Uggerslev, Fassina, & Kraichy, 2012) and therefore it can be a powerful tool for creating a workforce that supports and promotes an organization's culture and strategic direction (Gully, Phillips, & Kim, 2014).The purpose of the current study is to investigate how job ads might improve recruiting outcomes for a new small organization with an innovation culture and strategy. First, the study investigates how recruitment messages containing information about a new organization's culture of innovation influence organizational attraction. Second, this study explores the moderating effects of job seekers' learning and performance goal orientations on the relationship between recruitment messages and organizational attraction, which in turn are proposed to influence job pursuit intentions. How organizational prestige mediates the relationship between a recruiting ad describing a need for innovation and job pursuit intentions is also investigated.Many new or small organizations may not have lavish budgets for generating attractive recruiting advertisements, sponsoring television spot ads, hiring recruiting specialists, or developing extensive business websites (Hannan & Freeman, 1984). Additionally, they may be reluctant to engage in costly recruitment practices (Cardon & Stevens, 2004). Instead, these organizations often have little or no corporate reputation or image, very small or non-existent human resource management departments, and are limited in their ability to fill open positions (Cardon & Stevens, 2004). Such firms often post small advertisements with a limited amount of text and information in local papers or on job boards. These types of postings appear all the time, across the country, for many types of occupations, yet little is known about how actual job seekers respond to such ads.In this paper signaling theory is used to build a process model of the effects of recruitment messages and individual differences on attraction and job pursuit. It is proposed that innovation job ad content will influence organizational attraction depending on the learning and performance goal orientations of the job seeker. Organizational attraction, in tum, will influence job pursuit intentions. It is also proposed that innovation job ad information will be positively related to perceptions of organizational prestige which will be positively related to job pursuit intentions. The proposed model focuses on the process by which a new organization's recruitment messages highlighting innovation translate into attraction and job pursuit intentions depending on key characteristics of the job seeker. Figure 1 illustrates the proposed model.Organizations can be a part of their employees' self-identity or self-concept (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Carter & Highhouse, 2014; Scott & Lane, 2000). Because the employer is an important component of many employees' identities, it has been proposed that job seekers are likely to take into account their general impressions of or feelings about an organization when deciding whether or not to apply for a job there (Cable & Turban, 2001).The early stage of job seeking for applicants involves a general information search to identify those jobs or organizations worth considering for pursuit to employment opportunities (Barber, Daly, Giannantonio, & Phillips, 1994). The job seeker uses this initial information to build a mental image of what it is probably like to work for a particular organization, which informs the decision of whether or not to continue to include that potential opportunity in the job search. …