There is an old saying that “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” While this sounds true, researchers have discovered the opposite is more correct.

Humans tend to be attracted to people and things to which they receive frequent and repeated exposure. It’s a step beyond familiarity, and it applies more directly to recruiting interactions.

Advertising agencies understand this principle. It’s the reason brand advertising exists, and it largely accounts for the $495 billion spent in the global advertising market each year.

You can’t afford to ignore this principle if you want to attract people to you and your organization. Let’s learn how to apply it to recruiting.

The Mere Exposure Discovery

Dozens of studies have been done on the connection between mere exposure and attractiveness. It’s kind of a goofy language, but researchers use the word “mere” to mean they’re isolating repeated exposure as a single variable in their experiments.

One of the studies I found most interesting was conducted at the University of Pittsburg and the University of Michigan in the early ‘80s. It involved giving students a small packet of photos and asking them to rate them for attractiveness. The duration of the experiment was four weeks, and the photos represented average looking people of various ages.

One group of students was given a new packet of photos each week. A second group of students was given the same packet of photos they received the previous week (i.e. evaluating the same photos four weeks in a row).

Surprisingly, the second group rated the people in their photos as increasingly more attractive as each week passed. The only thing that changed was the repeated exposure. The control group reported no increase in attractiveness among the photos they evaluated.

Conclusion: Repeated exposure to something increases attractiveness.

Mere Exposure and Recruiting

For recruiting, this principle is best applied on a small-scale basis.

Familiarity (the topic covered earlier this week) is the shotgun approach. If people are not generally familiar with you and your organization, there is little chance they’ll feel attracted to you.

Repeated exposure is more effective if it is targeted. Most real estate companies can’t afford large-scale branding campaigns focused solely on recruiting. Some companies can do this (think of how many recruiting ads you’ve heard for Uber), but it’s expensive.

A better approach is focusing on a small group of people you’re trying to recruit. If an individual sees you and hears from you frequently (in a thoughtful and personal way), they will be attracted to you.

Measure the Number of Connections

Connections can happen in various ways such as an email, a social networking post, a phone call, and a face-to-face interaction.

If your goal is to create attraction, you need to be proactive on making sure these connections happen frequently. Consider creating a metric for yourself that tracks and rewards frequency of contact.

By doing this, you may find you’re not recruiting anymore. People will start coming to you on their own via this mysterious force we’re all trying to harness.

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