The relationship between candidate self-monitoring, verbal impression management, and interviewers' ratings in the employment interview

Past research has found that verbal and nonverbal communication are both powerful vehicles for impression management in the employment interview. Research on the socialpsychological trait of self-monitoring suggests that people differ in terms of their skill at impression management The primary purpose of the present research was to detennine if candidates' self-monitoring orientations are related to interviewers' ratings and hiring recommendations in actual employment interviews (Study 1) and to candidate impression management behavior in mock interviews (Study 2). Two hundred and thirty-three job candidates (college students) and 30 campus recruiters participated in the first study. Three hypotheses were tested in this study. The first hypothesis predicted that high self-monitoring candidates would be evaluated more favorably than low selfmonitoring candidates. The second hypothesis predicted that self-monitoring would be more strongly related to interviewers' ratings and hiring recommendations for people-oriented jobs than it would for technically-oriented jobs. The third hypothesis predicted that self-monitoring would be more strongly related to ratings of fit than to ratings of general employability. Only the second hypothesis was supported in Study 1. Specifically, candidate self-monitoring was more strongly related to interviewers' ratings and hiring recommendations for people-oriented jobs than it was for technically-oriented jobs.