Potential Employees’ Impression Management Tactics and Human Resource Management Professionals’ Perspectives

Abstract

This research aims to determine the impression management tactics used by potential employees that are important to employers in the job market, particularly in their curriculum vitaes (CVs) and interviews during the application process, and to identify which tactics are the most important to human resources (HR) specialists. The study has employed within its scope semi-structured interviews that allow a thorough examination of the participants’ feelings, attitudes, and thoughts with 45 potential employees and eight HR professionals. The study findings reveal that potential employees mostly prefer the tactics of building a favorable image, self-promotion, and supplication, whereas they use exemplification tactics less. Similar to these results, HR professionals also highlighted the tactics of building a favorable image, self-promotion, and supplication in recruitment interviews. The study results are expected to be beneficial for creating a more positive image of potential candidates in the labor market, both during the recruitment interviews and the job application stage. JEL Classification : M1 , M10 , M12

Keywords

• impression management
• self-presentation
• human resources
• potential employees
• job application

Supporting Institution

TUBITAK

Project Number

This project is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) within the scope of 2209-A University Students Research Projects Support Program.

Ethical Statement

The Yıldız Technical University Social and Human Sciences Research Ethics Committee granted approval for the data gathering techniques and methodologies to be employed in the study at hand.

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