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How Accurate are Recruiters' First Impressions of Applicants in Employment Interviews?
Author(s) -
Schmid Mast Marianne,
Bangerter Adrian,
Bulliard Céline,
Aerni Gaëlle
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
international journal of selection and assessment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.812
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1468-2389
pISSN - 0965-075X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2389.2011.00547.x
Subject(s) - psychology , conscientiousness , openness to experience , big five personality traits , extraversion and introversion , personality , deception , social psychology , personnel selection , applied psychology , management , economics
The ability of recruiters and laypersons (students) to detect applicant personality traits and deception was studied. Participants viewed mock videotapes of target applicants answering interview questions. They subsequently judged the applicants' personality on the Big Five dimensions. Then, they viewed another videotape with other applicants presenting themselves either truthfully or not, and subsequently guessed which version was truthful. Personality judgments were compared with targets' self‐assessments and peer assessments to create an accuracy score. Both recruiters and students accurately detected applicants' global personality profile. Recruiters were better at this than students. However, students were better at judging the specific traits of openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, whereas recruiters only accurately detected openness. Recruiters detected lies above chance whereas students did not.