People are naturally driven to put their best foot forward during a job interview. There are times, however, when people perceive that being entirely honest will hurt their chances of securing the job, or they cannot provide a high-quality response to the interview questions. In these situations, some candidates may resort to a set of strategies called “deceptive impression management” because they believe it will help them succeed in the interview (Levashina & Campion, 2007).

Deceptive impression management describes candidates’ distortion of responses to the interview questions (Levashina & Campion, 2006). These tactics can include minor exaggerations of skills, pretending to share values with the interviewer or covering up negative details about oneself when asked directly. In fewer instances, candidates may even lie and invent fictional stories (Bourdage et al., 2018). These tactics may not be rooted in malicious intent (Ellingson & McFarland, 2011); rather, the evaluative nature of job interviews can pressure candidates into distorting their answers as a natural social response (Marcus, 2009). It is unclear, however, if deceptive impression management actually benefits candidates as they believe it will.

The inherent purpose of resorting to deceptive impression management is to be evaluated more favourably in a job interview (Levashina & Campion, 2006). This perceived benefit of deception may, however, be an inaccurate assumption made by job candidates who see the need to engage in such strategies. Some studies have discovered that deceptive impression management is related to better interview evaluations (e.g. Ingold et al., 2015), whereas others have found the opposite relation (e.g. Swider et al., 2011). Thus, there is mixed evidence regarding the extent to which deceptive impression management predicts better interview evaluations.

To enhance the understanding of deceptive impression management and interview evaluations, our research team conducted a meta-analytic study – currently in-press at the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, Special Issue: Emerging Research in Industrial-Organizational Psychology in Canada. We compiled all existing studies that contained data on the relation between deceptive impression management and interview evaluations. Across 27 different studies, we discovered that deceptive impression management has, on average, almost zero association with interview evaluations (Ho et al., in press). In comparison, our analysis of existing studies indicates that honest forms of impression management (i.e. truthfully promoting one’s skills or fit with the company) are associated with better interview evaluations. These results therefore suggest that although candidates feel pressured to distort their responses during interviews, these deceptive strategies typically will not help them in the end, whereas honest tactics will.

Although deceptive impression management may be a tempting response to a tough interview question or a perceived gap in the skill requirements, job candidates do have better options. For one, our study demonstrated that engaging in honest tactics – being completely truthful about what skills one possesses – is more likely to result in a favourable impression during the interview (Ho et al., in press). What career counsellors can take away from our research is that they should train and encourage candidates to only use honest impression management tactics in job interviews, due to its demonstrated effectiveness.

Career counsellors can further emphasize that even when candidates feel pressured or tempted to distort their responses, they should focus on highlighting the skills they do have and demonstrate their willingness to learn. Candidates do not want to end up in a situation where they embellished their skills and end up being a poor fit for the job (Charbonneau et al., in press). As such, whereas lying does not improve one’s chances of securing the job, honesty may in fact be the best policy.

Jordan Ho is a PhD candidate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the University of Guelph. Jordan is interested in methods of improving the fairness of personnel selection practices, including research on intersectionality, stigma and hiring discrimination.

References

Bourdage, J. S., Roulin, N., Tarraf, R. (2018). “I (might be) just that good”: Honest and deceptive impression management in employment interviews. Personnel Psychology, 71, 597– 632. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12285

Charbonneau, B. D., Powell, D. M., Spence, J. R., & Lyons, S. T. (in press). Unintended consequences of interview faking: Impact on perceived fit and affective outcomes. Personnel Assessment and Decisions.

Ellingson, J. E., & McFarland, L. A. (2011). Understanding faking behavior through the lens of motivation: An application of VIE theory. Human Performance, 24, 322–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/08959285.201.597477

Ho, J. L., Powell, D. M., & Stanley, D. J. (in press). The relation between deceptive impression management and employment interview ratings: A meta-analysis. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science. https://doi.org/10.1037/cbs0000223

Ingold, P. V., Kleinmann, M., König, C. J., & Melchers, K. G. (2015). Shall we continue or stop disapproving of self-presentation? Evidence on impression management and faking in a selection context and their relation to job performance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 24, 420–432. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2014.915215

Levashina, J., & Campion, M. A. (2006). A model of faking likelihood in the employment interview. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 14, 299–316. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2006.00353.x

Levashina, J., & Campion, M. A. (2007). Measuring faking in the employment interview: Development and validation of an interview faking behavior scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1638–1656. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.6.1638

Marcus, B. (2009). ‘Faking’ from the applicant’s perspective: A theory of self‐presentation in personnel selection settings. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 17, 417–430. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2009.00483.x

Swider, B. W., Barrick, M. R., Harris, T. B., & Stoverink, A. C. (2011). Managing and creating an image in the interview: The role of interviewee initial impressions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 1275–1288. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024005