Recruiters’ Inferences of Applicant Personality Based on Resume Screening: Do Paper People have a Personality?

Abstract

Research shows recruiters infer dispositional characteristics from job applicants' resumes and use these inferences in evaluating applicants' employability. However, the reliability and validity of these inferences have not been empirically tested. Using data collected from 244 recruiters, we found low levels of estimated interrater reliability when they reviewed entry-level applicants' resumes and made inferences regarding applicants' personality traits. Moreover, when recruiters' inferences of applicant personality were correlated with applicants' actual Big Five personality scores, results indicated that recruiters' inferences lacked validity, with the possible exceptions of extraversion and openness to experience. Finally, despite being largely unreliable and invalid, recruiters' inferences of applicants' extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness predicted the recruiters' subsequent employability assessments of the applicants.

Personality Traits in Australian Business Graduates and Implications for Organizational Effectiveness

“…They found recruiter Implications of personality traits in business graduates judgement on personality traits was typically inaccurate and unreliable, with accurate inferences occurring only for Extroversion, this being more transparent through, for example, the number of extra-curricular activities, confirmation of the broad acknowledgement of its high visibility in the context of recruitment. Despite expectations that Consciousness and Openness would be transparent in resumés via strong academic achievement and an interest in diverse activities such as travel and community activities, the findings of Cole et al (2009) suggested otherwise. Interestingly, their study indicated that business graduates perceived to have higher levels of Conscientiousness, Extroversion and Openness received more positive employability assessments in the initial stages of screening.…”

Integrating the Expanded Task-technology Fit Theory and the Technology Acceptance Model: A Multi-wave Empirical Analysis

“…While resumes and applications provide much factual and verifiable information such as educational achievements, certifications, licenses, experience, and so on, employers also use them to infer other characteristics such as personality, intelligence, leadership, and work ethic (Cable & Gilovich, 1998;Cole, Feild, Giles, & Harris, 2009). They then use these inferences to assess prospect employability (Brown & Campion, 1994;Cole, Feild, & Giles, 2003;Cole, Rubin, Feild, & Giles, 2007).…”

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

“…Typical studies have focused on the role of résumés in applicant screening in the preinterview phase in relation to invitations to subsequent employment interviews (Brown and Campion 1994;Chen et al 2011;Cable and Gilovich 1998;Cole et al 2007Cole et al , 2009Johnson and Lahey 2011;Thoms et al 1999;Tsai et al 2011). Despite studies exploring the relative importance of recruiters' preinterview evaluations of or knowledge of résumé information and applicants' interview performance in postinterview decision making (Kinicki et al 1990;Dalessio and Silverhart 1994;Macan and Dipboye 1990;Wade and Kinicki 1995), the inconsistent findings drawn from these studies failed to clarify the respective roles of information-utilizing mechanisms in the preinterview and interview phases of the selection process.…”

“…As the industry provides the labor market with a considerable amount of entry-level job vacancies (Kusluvan et al 2010;Okumus et al 2010), screening applicants by evaluating résumés and then proposing a list of recommended candidates to interviewers for subsequent interviews to assess candidates' attributes is a more economic employment practice (Cole et al 2009;Hutchinson 1984). Accordingly, how effectively recruiters infer applicants' qualifications from résumés matters because their recommendations influence organizations' hiring decisions (Cole et al 2009). We propose that there is difference in effect size across preinterview judgments on postinterview acceptance decision making.…”

“…Hotel recruiters rarely measure applicants' IAs accurately from résumé information (Chan and Kuok 2011) because typical résumé items fail to incorporate a complete profile of personality traits that reveal sufficient cues (Cole et al 2009) from which to confidently infer applicants' social skills (Foti and Hauenstein 2007). When recruiters feel uncertain about whether applicants have the IAs that are highly required in the service industry, they will seek more information until dyadic interactions occur during the interview, where applicants are allowed to demonstrate their communication-related skills using alternative influence tactics in order to persuade the recruiters that they have the required abilities (Hazer and Jacobson 2003;Rasmussen 1984).…”