Knowledge Management in HRM: How the Content of Job Offers can Attract More Candidates Maciej Szafrański 1 , Dorota Woźna 2 and Magdalena Graczyk-Kucharska 1 Poznan University of Technology, Faculty of Engineering Management, Poland Poznan University of Economics, Informatics and Econometrics, Poland maciej.szafranski@put.poznan.pl 89545@student.ue.poznan.pl magdalena.graczyk-kucharska@put.poznan.pl Abstract: The fundamental aim of the research was to deepen knowledge of the influence of developing the wording of job offers on the number of candidates responding to them. It stems from the overarching aim consisting in improving human resource management (HRM) by knowledge management (KM) related to the job market and job seekers' reactions to information concerning competence requirements published in job offers. The specific objective was to answer two questions: are there words in job offers that increase the number of job seekers, and whether this number is dependent on the length of the wording of the selected module of an offer. Particular attention was paid to positive words. It was checked whether their number in relation to the number of all words in an offer matters. In order to answer the research questions, text processing methods such as tokenization and lemmatization were first used, followed by the analysis by means of such statistical methods as the chi-square test (χ^2) and the Mann-Whitney U test. The obtained research results allowed to illustrate job seekers’ preferences. It was noted that the length of an offer is also important. However, it was not possible to confirm the assumption that positive words increase the attractiveness of an offer. Despite the limitations of a little diversified database (candidates were dominated by young people with little work experience), the research brought new value to competence and human resource management. The research resulted in extending the scope of knowledge on the use of the analysis of job offers in the area of effective communication with candidates for work in organizations. Keywords: Knowledge management, Competence management, Human resource management, Text analysis,Jjob offers 1. Introduction Knowledge management (KM) plays an important role in strengthening the competitiveness of companies (Marimuthu, Arokiasamy & Ismail, 2009). Its use is necessary in many areas of enterprise operation, also in human resource management (HRM) (Zaim et al., 2018). When relationships between KM and HRM are presented in the source literature (Turulja & Bajgoric, 2018), both the context of the impact of HRM on KM (Gope, Elia & Passiante, 2018) and the impact of KM on HRM (Zaim et al., 2018) can be encountered. Analyzing the latter type often concerns the flow of knowledge/sharing knowledge in organizations (Marouf, 2016) and the effect of generally defined main KM functions on generally defined HRM practices (Zaim, 2016). When preparing this article, a scarcity of research work on specific operational effects of KM on HRM was noted, which ultimately influences companies' strategic results. The research presented here focuses on knowledge management related to the job market and the behavioural mechanisms of its participants, including their reactions to the content of job offers. It was observed that knowledge management in the indicated scope is favourable to the improvement of HRM functioning. It increases the chances of attracting the best candidates, which is a condition for the successful achievement of goals in enterprises. The development of knowledge management in HRM is positively influenced by the dynamic development of methods and tools in the areas of IT and statistics. In the context of knowledge related to applicants' reactions to the content of job offers, they help to analyze job offers more and more accurately, and are more effective in performing the recruitment function, treated as a component of human resource management (Dubois & Rothwell, 2010, pp. 95-124; Goliński, 2020). In a strategic dimension, the use of the aforementioned methods and tools improves the provision of the required competences in organizations. Currently, there are many directions of analyzing job offers, for example, for the purpose of determining recruitment effectiveness by improving the attractiveness of job offers (Garver et al., 2019; Kessler et al., 2009). It is important when it comes to reducing difficulties in quickly recruiting employees who meet competence-related requirements at workplaces. An offer may be perceived as attractive due to its many features such as: remuneration (Garver et al., 2019; Schlechter et al., 2014), employer image (Thornbury & Brooks, 2010), a large number of attractive benefits (Alniacik, 2016; Tato-Jimenez et al., 2019; Li et al., 2020), simple and understandable language (Nowak & Ohia-Nowak, 2022), information to meet the expectations of a target group it is specifically meant for (Born & Taris, 2010). 1321 Proceedings of the 24th European Conference on Knowledge Management, ECKM 2023