How and Why Do Interviewers Try to Make Impressions on Applicants
management
Description
How and Why Do Interviewers Try to Make Impressions on Applicants?
A Qualitative Study
Annika Wilhelmy and Martin Kleinmann
Universität Zürich
Cornelius J. König
Universität des Saarlandes
Klaus G. Melchers
Universität Ulm
Donald M. Truxillo
Portland State University
To remain viable in today’s highly competitive business environments, it is crucial for organizations to
attract and retain top candidates. Hence, interviewers have the goal not only of identifying promising
applicants but also of representing their organization. Although it has been proposed that interviewers’
deliberate signaling behaviors are a key factor for attracting applicants and thus for ensuring organiza-
tions’ success, no conceptual model about impression management (IM) exists from the viewpoint of the
interviewer as separate from the applicant. To develop such a conceptual model on how and why
interviewers use IM, our qualitative study elaborates signaling theory in the interview context by
identifying the broad range of impressions that interviewers intend to create on applicants, what kinds of
signals interviewers deliberately use to create their intended impressions, and what outcomes they pursue.
Following a grounded theory approach, multiple raters analyzed in-depth interviews with interview-
ers and applicants. We also observed actual employment interviews and analyzed memos and image
brochures to generate a conceptual model of interviewer IM. Results showed that the spectrum of
interviewers’ IM intentions goes well beyond what has been proposed in past research. Furthermore,
interviewers apply a broad range of IM behaviors, including verbal and nonverbal as well as
paraverbal, artifactual, and administrative behaviors. An extensive taxonomy of interviewer IM
intentions, behaviors, and intended outcomes is developed, interrelationships between these ele-
ments are presented, and avenues for future research are derived.
