Stories They Tell: The Rhetoric of Recruiting Independent Consultants

This study investigates the themes that drive persuasive recruiting appeals, or stories, designed to attract new, entrepreneurial workers in the direct selling industry. It offers a rhetorical perspective informed by fantasy theme analysis on the themes present in the recruiting content on the corpo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business and technical communication 2018-10, Vol.32 (4), p.447-479
Main Authors: Martin, Sarah E., Rawlins, Jacob D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study investigates the themes that drive persuasive recruiting appeals, or stories, designed to attract new, entrepreneurial workers in the direct selling industry. It offers a rhetorical perspective informed by fantasy theme analysis on the themes present in the recruiting content on the corporate Web sites of three direct selling companies (Mary Kay, Stella & Dot, and Scentsy). The analysis indicates that rhetorical agency is a core theme in the persuasive recruiting stories for these companies. Offering a means for business and technical communication scholars to explore agency or other persuasive story themes in context, this study addresses how a rhetorical perspective is useful to assess recruiting appeals in shifting, entrepreneurial work contexts.
ISSN:1050-6519
1552-4574
DOI:10.1177/1050651918780196