An investigation of applicant impression management profiles over time

Abstract

Research on applicant impression management (IM) has primarily been conducted in the context of interviews and personality assessments. A gap remains in understanding how applicants manage impressions on self-report skill and biodata assessments, which are sometimes incorporated in the early stages of ‘skill-based’ hiring processes. Moreover, there is limited research about IM behaviour over time. We present an exploratory study that identifies profiles of responses to self-report skill inventories over time in a sample of 743 real-world job applicants. The results identify four different longitudinal response profiles throughout the job search, indicating that individual differences influence how (or if) applicants manage impressions over time. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, including how employers can identify applicant IM by examining response patterns over time.