Disentangling the Effects of Applicant Defensive Impression Management Tactics in Job Interviews

Abstract

This study explores (1) the effects that three kinds of applicant defensive impression management (IM) tactics (apologies, justifications, and excuses) have on interviewer evaluation and (2) the moderating effects that two types of interviewer negative concerns (competence-related and integrity-related concerns) have on the aforementioned relationship. Two hundred and one managers from Taiwan participated in this study by watching a simulated interview. Compared with the control group, applicants using defensive IM tactics received higher interviewer ratings when negative concerns surfaced. Moreover, the type of interviewer negative concern moderated the effects of defensive IM tactics. All three tactics had similar effects on interviewer evaluation when the concern was competence related. Apology was, however, the most effective tactic when the concern was integrity related.

(Un)Ethical Leadership and Identity: What Did We Learn and Where Do We Go from Here?

“…Kim et al (2004), for example, found some support for apologies from leaders but only under specific conditions of evidence for their violations. Tsai et al (2010) also found evidence in support of apology when errors were integrity based. There is some conflicting evidence, however, suggesting that apologies may not always be effective and may actually hamper perceptions of leader competence (Cushenbery 2010).…”

How does the interview change the importance of résumé information in acceptance decisions? An experimental study in the hotel industry

“…There is agreement in the research literature that during the employment interview, to increase the chance of being accepted by recruiters, applicants are motivated to use verbal behaviors as a means of IM by which they convince the recruiter that they are more qualified for the job vacancy than other their competitors (Chen et al 2010;Ellis et al 2002;Hazer and Jacobson 2003;Higgins and Judge 2004;Tsai et al 2005Tsai et al , 2010Van Iddekinge et al 2007). Verbal IM tactics can be divided into assertive IM tactics and defensive IM tactics.…”

“…Finally, applicants often apply defensive IM tactics to respond to threats to their self-image, such as challenges or questions with respect to their qualifications, once they surface during interviews (Ellis et al 2002;Tsai et al 2010;Van Iddekinge et al 2007). Defensive tactics aim to elaborate on the reason for negative outcomes (Shaw et al 2003), and they are mostly take the form of an excuse or justification (Stevens and Kristof 1995).…”

“…Applicants use assertive IM tactics to proactively build favorable impressions of themselves and defensive IM tactics to passively protect or repair impressions of themselves (Stevens and Kristof 1995;Tedeschi and Melburg 1984). This typology has provided exhaustive classification results and has been accepted by researchers studying interviewees' IM behaviors (Ellis et al 2002;Tsai et al 2010). Thus, we used these two categories of IM tactics to examine the moderating role of applicant's IM tactics on the relationship between the results of résumé reviews and the chance of acceptance after the interview.…”

“…In particular, as there are no commonly accepted résumé items and attributes across jobs and industries, previous research based on various contexts and research designs has offered hardly any generalized conclusions or managerial guidelines on hotel industry practices, and the relationship between preinterview judgments and postinterview decisions in the hotel sector remains unknown. During job interviews, in order to produce favorable judgments of their attributes, applicants often attempt to convey signals to interviewers by way of alternative influence tactics in order to control or manipulate the reactions of interviewers to images of themselves: that is, impression management (IM) (Ferris and Judge 1991;Gardner and Martinko 1988;Higgins et al 2003;Kacmar et al 1992;Kristof-Brown et al 2002;Proost et al 2010;Tsai et al 2005Tsai et al , 2010. This suggests that applicants' IM tactics with recruiters in an interview should influence the effect of résumé credentials on the chance of acceptance.…”