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There is no person who has never embellished their resume at least a little or added some characteristic in order to increase their chances of getting a job during the selection process. One of the first psychologists who dealt with the psychology of work, Douglas McGregor, presents the job search situation as a situation that is demanding for both the person hiring and the candidate because of the roles that both parties have: on the one hand, the offer could contribute to the candidate income, security, but also self-esteem, while the one who hires has the task of choosing the person who will best fit into the organization, but also who will contribute the most to the company's income.
Researchers Weiss and Feldman (Weiss & Feldman, 2006) found that 81% of candidates admitted to lying at least once during a job interview and that it was aimed at trying to adapt the candidates to the job requirements. A year later, Levashina and Campion found that 80% of candidates participated in "expanding their self-image" during the interview process (Levashina & Campion, 2007). These were mostly answers to questions asking them to give an example of a situation, so there was room for "creative freedom".
Is it the same if we tailored our answers to what we saw the interviewer was asking us or if we said we had a master's degree that we didn't have? Of course not. It is intuitively clear to all of us that there are certain limits to which it is necessary to pay attention. What does science say about it? And what is impression management?
Impression management is defined as the process by which individuals intend to control the impressions that others form about them (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). As humans, we have a tendency to influence the impressions others will have of us, as it will determine how we are treated, perceived and evaluated. If we already tend to distort our self-image (at least a little), how will we know where the boundaries are that are necessary to define within selection? LevaŔina argues that, however, not all impression management has to be deceptive or intentional.
Two types of impression management: honest VS misleading
In order to understand the different types of impression management, it is important to understand that candidates can manipulate information in a number of ways - they can assess what the ideal candidate would be for a given position and tailor their responses accordingly. For example, if we are applying for the position of Sales Representative, we understand that, in most cases, it is necessary for this person to be talkative and persuasive. That's how we'll try to emphasize these characteristics of ours at the job interview, that is, to "sell" them. This type of impression management, which talks about beautifying our self-image in accordance with the characteristics we already possess, is defined as honest impression management.
Another example of this behavior could be that, for example, we additionally highlight our previous experiences that support this position, which may not have been our primary focus, although we certainly did them.
Deceptive impression management is the other end of the impression management continuum and is what usually comes to mind when we think of someone pretending. Making up incorrect or non-existent data, lying in the classic sense, is what falls under this category. If we go back to the Sales Representative, misleading impression management would be if we deliberately produced examples that didn't happen, since we were doing completely different things until then.
Why is this difference important?
LevaŔina argues that honest impression management does not necessarily need to be controlled by the person conducting the selection, while misleading impression management is very important to recognize in the early stages of the selection process. One of the reasons for this is the wrong assessment of one's competences and characteristics. Perhaps more important, however, is that the within-personality predictors were found to be nowhere near similar in candidates who tended toward one versus those who tended toward the other impression management. So it's not quite the same as we pretend.
Bourdage (Bourdage et al., 2018) in his research, with the aim of finding deeper differences between honest and deceptive impression management, came to the conclusion that there are significantly different predictors, as well as the consequences of these two ways of impression management. Deceptive impression management is, according to his research, driven by various negative personality traits, such as: a low level on the traits of honesty, conscientiousness, extraversion and a high level of competitiveness. On the other hand, respondents who showed a tendency towards honest impression management show significantly different characteristics.
Finally, it is important to remember that not all impression management is intentional and can have negative consequences on the selection process and recruitment. We all have a tendency to portray ourselves in a good light when needed (and job hunting situations are definitely ones that matter to us). Therefore, it is extremely important not to forget that there is a line between a slight distortion of the image and a complete transformation.