Recruitment of young professionals becomes the key task for the Russian public authorities. The research goal was to reveal the relationship between employer image attributes of the Russian public authorities and their attractiveness for young specialists. Based on the literature review, the research hypotheses regarding the positive relationship between instrumental, symbolic employer image attributes of public authorities and its attractiveness were formulated. To achieve the goal and to test the hypotheses the instrumental-symbolic framework was used which was successfully applied before in foreign studies within commercial organizations. The framework was adopted within public authorities’ context and an original questionnaire was constructed to conduct the survey among young specialists. The results of the survey among 83 young specialists revealed the significance of instrumental attributes of Russian public authorities’ employer image (e.g., stable employment guarantees, safe workplace and good social package) in perception of their attractiveness by young specialists. Based on the results of the research, relevant recommendations were given to improve the image policy on labor market by public authorities.