Revealing the influence of AI and its interfaces on job candidates' honest and deceptive impression management in asynchronous video interviews

Abstract

Automated video interviews powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly being adopted by employers to screen job candidates despite concerns regarding the humanity and transparency of AI. Accordingly, researchers and practitioners advocate overcoming these concerns by refining AI interfaces in terms of tangibility, immediacy, and transparency. However, AI video interviews featuring different interfaces may impact interviewees' tendencies to engage in impression management behaviors (IMs), which can either improve or impair personnel selection validity. This study addressed calls for research to investigate the issues mentioned above by conducting a field study to explore the ways in which AI and AI interfaces affect candidates' IMs in asynchronous video interviews (AVIs). We developed three AVI interfaces and measured real job applicants' self-reported IMs across four experimental treatments. We found that different AI interfaces could increase or decrease candidates' honest IMs and deceptive IMs in different ways. An exploratory analysis also found that candidates' interview anxiety could be mitigated by an AI interface.