This qualitative study explored the relationship between new employees’ identifying experience with the organization and their fairness perceptions of the personnel selection process in the first and third months’ of their employment. Phenomenological methodology was used to identify the meanings and essences of the experiences of five new employees reflecting on their personnel selection and orienting experiences with the organization in their first three months of employment. Social identity theory was one of the lenses used to explore the individual employee’s perceptions, and the other lens was procedural justice, exploring the employee’s perceptions of her/his experience of the fairness of the organization’s personnel selection process related to her/his identifying experience.

The impact of time is seen in the employees’ identifying experience with the job role and organization, which starts in the recruitment process. In the first month, the employees are balancing gaining understanding and building relationships between the individual-self and the job role, and between the individual-self and the organization. The new employees continue to develop their job role and organization social identities in the first month of employment; by the third month of employment, the new employees’ job role social identities become more salient as compared to the organizational social identities. Contextual factors affect organizational and job role social identity salience with the five participating new employees. The employees gain vii positive self-worth, greater self-understanding, and are seen as distinct individuals with their own professional goals through their identifying experiences with the job role and organization.

These study results strongly support the premise that new employees forming favorable social identities with the job role and organization, starting in the recruitment process, are most likely to consider their recruitment process as fair. Further, the new employees’ views of the fairness of their recruitment process experience may contribute to shaping to their identifying experiences.