CONSIDER THE DILEMMA

It’s your chance for a dream job after you graduate in May. As a sports marketing major, you know how hard it is to land a job with a professional team. Most graduates begin their careers with college programs, taking years to advance to the big leagues. Sitting in the reception lounge of the team’s Chicago headquarters, you count yourself lucky to have an interview for an entry-level position in special events promotions.

As you wait, you mentally rehearse answers to possible interview questions: What makes you a good candidate for this position? Give an example of a time you had difficulty working on a team project. How did you handle it?

Victoria Mines, special events coordinator, soon approaches, greets you enthusiastically, and invites you into her office. As you make small talk, you feel an immediate connection with her, especially when you learn that you both graduated from the same university. You talk about professors you had in common and the football team’s season. After quickly reviewing your résumé, Victoria begins asking some of the exact questions for which you had prepared. She appears interested in each response, nodding approvingly and smiling.

Then Victoria asks the question you hadn’t anticipated: “I notice on your résumé that you interned in special events one summer for the Beaumont Scorpions. Will you describe how that experience has helped you prepare for this position?”

Filled with dread, you consider how to answer the question. You don’t want to ruin the positive vibe in the interview, but that internship was the worst. You answered telephones, ran errands for the stadium manager, and worked in the box office. Frustrated by the lack of any meaningful marketing experiences, you quit mid-season.

CONNECT 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 customer service through sales and problem solving for guests”). Employers expect interviewees to use self-promotion when talking about past work experiences, achievements, 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 element of truth, false image creation is lying (Swider et al., 2011).

Scholars found that 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 interviewees giving low-quality and less specific answers to questions in order to keep up the act. Such answers can cause poor interview ratings, which may lead to not getting hired (Swider et al., 2011).

A-21

COMMUNICATE

Before making a communication choice, 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 (pp. A-15 to A-21), communication skills in interviewing (pp. A-7 to A-10), and managing yourself in an employment selection interview (pp. A-22 to A-27). Then answer these questions:

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