Given the rise in international tourism and the rapid growth of the Vietnamese economy, the hospitality industry in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s commercial hub, has been facing severe labor shortages due to competition with other fast-growing parts of the economy. These struggles to acquire high-quality employees is strangling future growth and placing new importance on the role of recruitment. To better understand the effectiveness of an organization’s recruitment strategy, recruiters need to ascertain the Job Pursuit Intention (JPI) of job seekers to efficiently align an applicant’s work notions with the organization’s goals. This study aims to investigate the factors impacting on JPI among employees working in the hotel sector in Ho Chi Minh City. Secondary data are from previous studies and primary data are from consultation with 10 experts, group discussions and five in-depths structured interviews with 15 random employees and 302 survey questionnaires with employees working in three five-star hotels. Cronbach’s Alpha, EFA, T-Test, ANOVA are used for statistical analysis. The findings show that compensation, career advancement, and work-life balance affect JPI of job seekers, in which compensation is the most influential factor. Furthermore, recommendations for recruiters, further research and limitations of this study have been laid out.

While the number of women labor force in Malaysia is increasing, only a few of them make it to the top. For many reasons, some women turn down top position offer and some of them refuse to stay working. Commitment to the family, work-life conflict and lack of support from the family and the colleagues are among issues that caused women to have less interest to pursue career advancement. This article examines the role of work-life balance and its relationship to women career advancement, and why both are important in Malaysia. The arguments are arranged based on a review of the previous literature to conceptualize the relationship between work-life balance and career advancement. It is found that both work-life balance and women career advancement are important to retain women in the working world as well as to motivate them to pursue promotion to a higher position. Even though some researchers agreed that the relationship between work-life balance and career advancement is mostly negative, others found positive relationship between both constructs. At the end of the paper, some suggestions on how to improve work-life balance and career advancement are presented as well as suggestion for future research.