Research into psychological contracts within organisational research has grown in recent years, but the origins of psychological contract expectations have been given relatively little consideration. One premise is that these expectations initially develop during the job seeking process as anticipatory psychological contract beliefs. These beliefs are subsequently carried into the organisation upon employment to form the individual's psychological contract beliefs. In the current study, a specific set of cognitive and social functions are proposed to influence the employee psychological contract during the recruitment/job seeking processes. The proposed model was tested using hierarchical multiple regression, with self-report survey data collected from one hundred and thirty tertiary students in their final year of study. The results offered partial support for the hypothesised relationships, and also revealed a number of significant relationships that were not hypothesised. The results suggest that information presented by both organisational and extra-organisational sources contributes to the formation of the psychological contract, as do perceptions of employer image and employer attractiveness. Jointly, these findings endow much theoretical and practical value to both fields of recruitment/job seeking and psychological contracts, particularly in the area of psychological contract formation. Avenues for future research are offered in response to the findings, and to address the limitations of the current research.