Actual Job Applicants Research Articles

Post-Editing a Google Translated Output: Experienced Translators vs. Trainees

The present empirical study reports on an experiment in which 20 participants (actual job applicants) were asked to post-edit a 394-word legal Google translated text (GTT) to investigate the type of post edits done in relation to the quality of the product as assessed by the recruitment test assessors in the translation service provider. For the purposes of the empirical research, participants were categorized in two groups; translators with practical experience between 3-5 years and trainees (recent translation graduates) with no practical experience. Assessors at the translation service provider used LISA QA model 3.1 version for quality assessment. The three factors investigated by assessors were time spent on the task, number and type of changes (post-edits) as well as the quality of the final post-edited text based on errors committed in the post-editing (PE). Results reveal a correlation between the type and number of edits done by participants and the quality of the final output and consequently a correlation between practical experience and the quality of the post-edited output. The research unveils some areas that need to be improved in the study plans at the translator training programs in Jordan, particularly in relation to PE efficiency. Results also imply that general experience in translation may not be enough to excel in post-editing specialized texts that require special knowledge in a given subject matter.

Applicant Reactions to Digital Selection Methods: A Signaling Perspective on Innovativeness and Procedural Justice

Research has shown that the use of digital technologies in the personnel selection process can have both positive and negative effects on applicants’ attraction to an organization. We explain this contradiction by specifying its underlying mechanisms. Drawing on signaling theory, we build a conceptual model that applies two different theoretical lenses (instrumental-symbolic framework and justice theory) to suggest that perceptions of innovativeness and procedural justice explain the relationship between an organization’s use of digital selection methods and employer attractiveness perceptions. We test our model by utilizing two studies, namely one experimental vignette study among potential applicants (N = 475) and one retrospective field study among actual job applicants (N = 335). With the exception of the assessment stage in Study 1, the positive indirect effects found in both studies indicated that applicants perceive digital selection methods to be more innovative. While Study 1 also revealed a negative indirect effect, with potential applicants further perceiving digital selection methods as less fair than less digitalized methods in the interview stage, this effect was not significant for actual job applicants in Study 2. We discuss theoretical implications for the applicant reactions literature and offer recommendations for human resource managers to make use of positive signaling effects while reducing potential negative signaling effects linked to the use of digital selection methods.

Trusting Virtual Agents

We present artificial intelligent (AI) agents that act as interviewers to engage with a user in a text-based conversation and automatically infer the user's personality traits. We investigate how the personality of an AI interviewer and the inferred personality of a user influences the user's trust in the AI interviewer from two perspectives: the user's willingness to confide in and listen to an AI interviewer. We have developed two AI interviewers with distinct personalities and deployed them in a series of real-world events. We present findings from four such deployments involving 1,280 users, including 606 actual job applicants. Notably, users are more willing to confide in and listen to an AI interviewer with a serious, assertive personality in a high-stakes job interview. Moreover, users’ personality traits, inferred from their chat text, along with interview context, influence their perception of and their willingness to confide in and listen to an AI interviewer. Finally, we discuss the design implications of our work on building hyper-personalized, intelligent agents.

Fairness Reactions to the Employment Interview

The current research explores applicants’ reactions to the employment interview and how these are associated with core self-evaluations and proactivity along with perceptions of the interviewer and interview’s justice perceptions of post-interview outcomes (behavioral intentions, job attractiveness, and organizational attractiveness). We also explored the role of perceived organizational support (POS) in these relationships. We employ a cross-sectional approach, with the participation of 238 actual job applicants, using a survey methodology. We demonstrated the important role of core self-evaluations in fairness perceptions of the interview, along with the significant role of some interview characteristics, more importantly informativeness and personableness. Finally, applicants’ perceptions of the employer were also strongly associated with interview’s justice perceptions and post-interview outcomes. This is one of the first and very few studies exploring this topic in a non-English culture (in Greece), with actual job applicants, not students.

Applicant Anxiety: Examining the sex‐linked anxiety coping theory in job interview contexts

The Sex‐linked Anxiety Coping Theory (SCT) suggests that anxiety should relate to performance more strongly for males than females. In Study 1, we examined how the theory applied to five interview anxiety dimensions (appearance anxiety, behavioral anxiety, communication anxiety, performance anxiety, and social anxiety) using actual job applicants. In general, females reported higher levels of each type of interview anxiety than did males. However, consistent with SCT, Overall Interview Anxiety, Appearance Anxiety, and Social Anxiety demonstrated stronger negative relations with interview performance for males than for females. Consistent with the SCT, in Study 2 we found that females had more effective coping orientations for job interviews than did males.

Integrity testing and the prediction of counterproductive behaviours in the military

While a great deal of research has been carried out on counterproductive work behaviours and integrity testing in civilian organizations, far less is known about these two areas in military settings. The present study developed a military‐oriented integrity test that successfully predicted future disciplinary infractions among a sample of 467 officer training school candidates (ρ = .26), while also discriminating between that sample and a comparable sample of soldiers serving time in military prisons (d = 2.24). In addition to its unique military setting, this study contributes to the integrity test literature by: (1) adopting both individual‐ and group‐level validity paradigms; (2) using a sample of actual job applicants; (3) measuring a reliable objective criterion in a predictive design; and (4) including comparative measures of cognitive ability, personality, and overall assessment centre ratings.Practitioner points Military settings may uniquely facilitate the reliable and objective measurement of counterproductive work behaviours. Integrity testing may be a valid and incremental predictor of counterproductive behaviours in military settings.

Watch What You Say: Job Applicants’ Justice Perceptions From Initial Organizational Correspondence

Although it is a common practice for organizations to communicate with job seekers following application submission, little is known about how applicants react to this correspondence. Drawing from recruitment and organizational justice theories, we explore the possibility that specific correspondence content influences job seekers’ fairness perceptions. Data collected from 119 actual job applicants indicated that providing relevant information about the recruitment process (information adequacy) positively related to informational and interpersonal justice perceptions. However, delivering this information in an interpersonally sensitive manner (information sensitivity) had a stronger impact on interpersonal justice perceptions. Finally, post hoc analyses suggested that incorporating specific content delivered in initial job applicant correspondence could allow recruiting organizations to develop practical, cost‐effective strategies for enhancing job seekers’ fairness perceptions following their application submission. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Impact of Applicant Faking on Selection Measures, Hiring Decisions, and Employee Performance

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of applicant faking and its impact on the psychometric properties of the selection measure, the quality of hiring decisions, and employee performance. This study utilized a within-subjects design where responses on a self-report measure were obtained for 162 individuals both when they applied for a pharmaceutical sales position, and after they were hired. Training performance data was collected at the completion of sales training and sales data was collected 5 months later. Applicant faking was a common occurrence, with approximately half of the individuals being classified as a faker on at least one of the dimensions contained in the self-report measure. In addition, faking was found to negatively impact the psychometric properties of the selection measure, as well as the quality of potential hiring decisions made by the organization. Further, fakers exhibited lower levels of performance than non-fakers. These findings indicate that past conclusions that applicant faking is either uncommon or does not negatively impact the selection system and/or organizational performance may be unwarranted. Remarkably few studies have examined applicant faking using a within-subjects design using actual job applicants, which has limited our understanding of applicant faking. Even fewer studies have attempted to link faking to criterion data to evaluate the impact of faking on employee performance. By utilizing this design and setting, the present study provides a unique glimpse into both the prevalence of faking and the significant impact faking can have on organizations.

Retesting Personality in Employee Selection: Implications of the Context, Sample, and Setting

The present study sought to assess when and how actual job applicants change their responses when filling out an unproctored personality selection assessment for a second time. It was predicted feedback would be a key contextual motivator associated with how much applicants change their answers during the second administration. Mediation results showed that individuals receiving feedback that showed a low score on the personality assessment was the reason they did not get the job were more likely to employ faking response strategies in the second testing session, predicting the highest change in scores between the first and second testing sessions. Individuals receiving no feedback and those not experimentally motivated to fake (i.e., a comparison group of students) showed less change in responses across administrations.

The Mediating Processes Linking Applicant Personality Traits and Interviewer Evaluation

This study examines interview preparations (i.e., social preparation and background preparation) and impression management (IM) tactics (i.e., self-focused IM and other-focused IM) as the mechanisms between applicant personality characteristics and interviewer evaluation. Data were collected from both actual job applicants and interviewers. Results show that personality characteristics (i.e., extraversion and conscientiousness) have indirect effects on interviewer evaluation in terms of perceived person–job fit (P–J fit) and interpersonal liking through these two types of applicant behaviors. This study accomplishes two goals: (1) it extends the socioanalytic theory of personality (Hogan, 1996) by testing the intervening roles played by applicants' behaviors that correspond to getting along with and getting ahead of others; and (2) it suggests that these applicant behaviors might be important cues for practical interviewers' effective assessment of applicants' performance-related characteristics.

Core processes and applicant reactions to the employment interview: an exploratory study in Greece

This research explores the employment interview in Greece with two aims: first, to look at the practice of the employment interview from the interviewer perspective, exploring a number of issues, which have been identified as important for increasing interview's effectiveness and second, to look at the role of interviewers' characteristics on applicant reactions and their behavioral intentions to the actual interview, using two independent samples of interviewers (N = 131) and actual job applicants (N = 122), respectively. The results of the first study were quite supportive regarding the effective use of the employment interview in Greece. In the second study, interviewers' personal characteristics were related to applicants' post-interview attitudes and intentions, although this relationship was fully mediated by the overall perception of the interview held by the job applicant. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Applicant Versus Employee Scores on Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Measures

There exists growing interest to assess applicants’ emotional intelligence (EI) via self-report trait-based measures of EI as part of the selection process. However, some studies that experimentally manipulated applicant conditions have cautioned that in these conditions use of self-report measures for assessing EI might lead to considerably higher scores than current norm scores suggest. So far, no studies have scrutinized self-reported EI scores among a sample of actual job applicants. Therefore, this study compares the scores of actual applicants at a large ICT organization (n = 109) on a well-known self-report measure of EI to the scores of employees already working in the organization (n = 239). The current study is the first to show that applicants’ scores on a self-report measure of EI during the selection process are indeed higher (d = 1.12) and have less variance (SD ratio = 0.86/1) than incumbents’ scores. Finally, a meta-analytic combination of our results with those of earlier research showed that a score increase of about 1 SD in applicant conditions seems to be the rule, regardless of the type of setting, self-report EI measure, and within- versus between-subjects design employed.

The Transparent Assessment Centre: The Effects of Revealing Dimensions to Candidates

Quelles retombées peut avoir le fait de dévoiler aux participants les dimensions mesurées dans un centre d’évaluation ? Cette question est abordée dans deux études indépendantes qui font appel à des exercices individuels. Les résultats de la première étude n’indiquent aucune différence dans la validité de construction entre un groupe d’étudiants universitaires “transparent” (N= 99) et un autre “non transparent” (N= 50) ; ceci est contraire à ce qu’avaient trouvéKleinmann & al. (1996) et Kleinmann (1997) avec des exercices de groupe. Les évaluations moyennes ne changent pas à l’exception de la “sensibilité” qui augmente légèrement avec la transparence. Par contre, les résultats de la deuxième étude, qui faisait appel à un échantillon de candidats à un poste réel, débouchèrent sur une amélioration significative de la validité de construction chez le groupe “transparent” (N= 297) pa rapport au group “non transparent” (N= 393). La encore, les évaluation moyennes des deux groupes n’ont pas différé. Les apports de ces résultats pour la pratique et des suggestions pour de futures recherches sont présentés dans cet article.What are the effects of revealing dimensions to candidates in an assessment centre? This question is addressed in two independent studies, using individual exercises. Results in Study 1 showed no difference in construct‐related validity between a transparent (N= 99) and a non‐transparent group of university students (N= 50), contrary to previous findings by Kleinmann, Kuptsch, and Köller (1996) and Kleinmann (1997), who used group exercises. Also, mean ratings did not alter, the exception being the dimension “Sensitivity”, which increased slightly after the transparency treatment. Conversely, results in Study 2, which contained a sample of actual job applicants, showed a significant improvement in construct‐related validity for the transparent group (N= 297) compared with the non‐transparent group (N= 393). Again, mean ratings did not differ between these two groups. Implications of these findings for practice and suggestions for future research are discussed in this paper.

Test Preparation Activities and Employment Test Performance

This study examined the relation among motivational factors, test preparation activities (metacognition and learning strategies), and employment test scores using data from 493 actual job applicants to a state law enforcement agency. Results showed that motivational factors are related to metacognition and the learning strategies in which applicants engage. Use of these activities was in turn associated with higher test performance.

EFFECTS OF JOB ATTRIBUTES AND RECRUITING PRACTICES ON APPLICANT DECISIONS: A COMPARISON1

Previous research on the factors which affect applicant decisions concerning jobs has focused on the effects of either job attributes or recruiting practices. The present study examined the simultaneous impact of job attributes and recruiting practices on the likelihood of job acceptance by actual job applicants. Path analysis revealed that job attributes but not recruiting practices influenced the likelihood of job acceptance by graduating college students (N= 200). Given that college students might be expected to be the job applicants most swayed by recruiting practices because of their lack of work experience, the results suggest that the emphasis placed on recruiting practices as determinants of applicant decisions may be overstated in the literature.