The Role of Time, Skill Emphasis, and Verifiability in Job Applicants' Self-Reported Skill and Experience

Although applicant self-reports of skills and experience are a core component of many selection methods (e.g., application blanks, resumes, biodata, online applicant tracking systems), applicant impression management (IM) on these types of assessments has generally been overlooked in the literature. Moreover, little research has examined the influence of contextual factors on within-person IM behaviors across time. This study applied the lens of expectancy theory to investigate how aspects of the application context-specifically time, information in the job ad, and verifiability-influenced IM on skill proficiency and experience measures over time. Using a sample of 1893 job applicants who had responded to 70 questions in relation to multiple job applications, we observed that applicants often change their responses to these questions across multiple applications, increasing and, in some cases, decreasing self-reported skills and experience. Longer job searches were positively associated with increases in self-reported skill proficiency and experience questions. Applicants were also likely to rate themselves more highly on questions assessing harder-to-verify skills and experience and were more likely to increase their reported years of experience over time for less verifiable questions. The findings have useful implications for researchers and practitioners, indicating that applicant job search length and question verifiability are contextual determinants of IM behavior on self-reported skills and experience assessments. Moreover, these findings are in line with valence-instrumentality-expectancy theory and dynamic models of applicant faking.

Automated summary

This study investigates applicant impression management (IM) behavior in self-reported skills and experience assessments and finds that applicants often change their responses to these questions across multiple job applications, influenced by contextual factors.