Recruitment websites and the socialisation of new employees

Resumen: The complex culture of the large corporation today is mainly shaped by persuasive rather than coercive means. In its messages, the company moulds its own identity and proposes roles for the different players through discourse, providing the information that is considered appropriate to each addressee, and suggesting what behaviours are desirable or acceptable. This trend is most intense at the beginning of a person¿s life with the firm. How a corporate body engages with would-be and recent recruits is of considerable interest to analysts who focus on the workings of discourse in society. This chapter explores the system of engagement operating multimodally in the recruitment and careers websites of twenty high-profile companies