Competition for rare talent and high levels of employee turnover over employee retention presents firms with human resource challenges. In order to acquire and retain intelligent capital within a competitive market for competent and skilled candidates, firms need to develop and adopt recruitment practices that favor their employee retention levels. This study‟s purpose was to analyze the relationship between E recruitment practices and employee retention among multinationals in Nairobi County. The objectives that guided the study to determine the nature of this relationship were; to identify E recruitment practices adopted by multinational corporations, to establish the levels of employee retention among multinational corporations and to analyze the influence of E recruitment practices on employee retention in multinational corporations.
The study was anchored on the resource based view of the firm (RBV) to explain the value of retaining valuable talent as a source of competitive advantage, the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to explain the decision by human resource managers to adopt E recruitment practices and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to explain adoption and continued use of E recruitment practices. Primary data was collected using questionnaires administered to the human resource managers of the firms under study. The target population was 217 multinational corporations based in Nairobi County. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regression analysis. Corporate websites, commercial websites and social network sites were the E recruitment practices used to analyze their influence on each employee retention variable which were; self selection, early work adjustment and employee turnover. Results showed that corporate websites were significant in explaining all the employee retention variables. Social network sites were relevant in explaining self selection while commercial websites were not significant in any case. The findings drawn from the study should allow human resource managers to have an understanding of the relationship between E recruitment practices and employee retention and an insight on which practices to focus on to gain competitive advantage.