Perceptions Of Job Applicants Research Articles

The Effects of Social Class on Perceptions of Job Applicants’ Suitability for Employment

With a shrinking middle-class population, and an increasing economic divide between the haves and haves not, social class within the United States has become an important topic of conversation in t...

The effect of facial piercing on perceptions of job applicants

This research examines how facial piercings affect impressions of a job candidate and whether these impressions are affected by gender or job type. Findings, based on two samples, indicate that individuals with piercings were viewed as less suitable job applicants and as possessing more negative characteristics than those with no piercings. These negative impressions were pervasive and unaffected by either applicant gender or job type. Specifically, using students, we found that pierced individuals were perceived as more extraverted, less agreeable, less conscientious, less attractive (from a social and task perspective), of more questionable character, less competent, less sociable, and not as trustworthy, and these imputed characteristics mediated the piercing—job suitability relationship. The results of a second sample of working adults found pierced applicants as less conscientious, less open, having less character, being more sociable, and being less trustworthy, with most of the imputed characteristics mediating the piercing—job suitability relationship.

The Effect of Facial Piercing on Perceptions of Job Applicants

This study examines how facial piercings affect impressions of a job candidate and whether these impressions are affected by gender or job type. Findings indicate that individuals with piercings we...

EFFECTS OF INGRATIATION, TOUCH, AND USE OF NAME ON EVALUATION OF JOB APPLICANTS AND INTERVIEWERS

Videotapes were made of male actors playing the roles of interviewers and job applicants in an interview for the position of research assistant. During the four-minute interview, interviewers either touched or did not touch the job applicants, they either used or did not use the applicants' first names, and they were presented as being in an ingratiating or a non-ingratiating position with regard to the job applicants. The videotapes were shown to introductory psychology students (n = 90) for affective ratings of the interviewers and job applicants. Name-using interviewers were characterized most significantly as being friendly, warm, and polite. Interviewer touching did not influence ratings of interviewers, but did have a significant effect on evaluations of job applicants. When an inter-viewer who was initially described as uninterested in a job applicant shook the applicant's hand, the applicant was evaluated as more sincere and as liking the interviewer more, but also as less intelligent and somewhat less polite. It was concluded that behaviors of interviewers can influence perceptions of job applicants as well as perceptions of interviewers. The attempt to manipulate interviewer ingratiation was not successful and a more effective treatment for ingratiation was suggested.