1. Your Dilemma
As a sports marketing major, you know how hard it is to land a job with a professional team. Now, sitting in the waiting area of the team’s Chicago headquarters, you’re about to interview for your dream job: an entry-level position in special events promotions.
Victoria Mines, special events coordinator, greets you and walks you to her office. An instant bond forms when you discover you both attended the same university. After reviewing your résumé, Victoria begins asking some of the exact questions you had anticipated. She nods approvingly to each of your responses. But then she asks a surprising question: “I notice on your résumé that you interned in special events for the Beaumont Scorpions. Will you describe that experience?”
You consider how to answer. You don’t want to ruin the positive vibe with Victoria, but that internship was the worst. You answered phones, ran errands for the stadium manager, and worked the ticket booth. Frustrated by the lack of meaningful marketing experiences, you quit mid-season.
2. The Research
During an employment interview, you want to project a positive face, or view of yourself. As Chapter 2 explains, your face is actively created and presented through your communication with others. You create your face during interviews in one of three ways.
First, interviewees may self-promote by truthfully describing past work experiences using positive language (“I delivered outstanding service through sales and problem solving for guests”). Employers expect interviewees to use self-promotion when talking about work history and job-relevant skills (Swider, Barrick, Harris, & Stoverink, 2011). Second, interviewees may engage in slight image creation, which involves exaggerating or modifying some truth about past work experience. For example, saying “I coordinated ticket sales for the Scorpions” exaggerates your role working in the ticket booth. Third, job candidates may try to maintain positive face by creating a false image (“I planned an appreciation day for local firefighters”). Unlike slight image creation, which has some degree of truth, false image creation is lying (Swider et al., 2011).
Interviewers give high ratings to applicants who use self-promotion in interviews (Swider et al., 2011). But slight or false image creation can be costly. Exaggerating or creating a false face means that interviewees must pay careful attention to other answers in order to avoid contradicting them. This concentration often results in giving low-quality and less specific answers to questions in order to keep up the act, which then leads to poor interview performance (Swider et al., 2011).
3. Your Opportunity
Before you act, consider the facts of the situation and think about the research on managing impressions in an interview. Also, reflect on what you’ve learned so far about creating résumés, communication skills in interviewing, and managing employment selection interviews.