The Effect of Applicant Impression Management Tactics on Hiring Recommendations: Cognitive and Affective Processes.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether applicants' impression management ( IM) tactics indirectly influence hiring recommendations through cognitive mechanisms (i.e. recruiters' perceptions of person-organisation [ P- O] fit, person-job [ P- J] fit, and person-recruiter [ P- R] fit) or affective mechanisms (i.e. recruiters' positive mood) during authentic employment interviews for actual job openings. Participants consisted of 221 applicant-recruiter dyads from 50 companies in Taiwan. The results demonstrated that applicants' self-focused IM tactics are positively related to recruiter perceptions of P- J fit, which in turn influence hiring recommendations. In addition, applicant other-focused IM tactics affect hiring recommendations through recruiters' perceptions of P- O fit. Moreover, applicants' non-verbal IM tactics were positively related to recruiters' positive mood, which in turn affected recruiters' perceptions of P- J fit and P- O fit, thereby affecting hiring recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]