Next time you face a job interview, relax and try to be yourself: if you're a good candidate, it could be the best way to get the job. In a recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Celia Moore (Department of Management at Bocconi University), Sun Young Lee (University College London), Kawon Kim (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) and Daniel Cable (London Business School) conclude that high-quality candidates who make an effort to present themselves accurately during the interview significantly increase the likelihood of receiving a job offer.
While job-hunting clichés encourage presenting only the best aspects of yourself to appear more attractive to interviewers, the authors of The Advantage of Being Oneself: The Role of Applicant Self-Verification in Organizational Hiring Decisions (doi: 10.1037/ apl0000223) conclude that it is more advantageous to present yourself as you really are, especially in the case of high quality candidates. At the heart of the research is the concept of self-verification, the desire to present oneself accurately, so that others form the same image of us as we do of ourselves. Until now, it was known that self-assessment positively influences outcomes that develop over time, such as the process of integrating into a new organization. Research shows, for the first time, that self-assessment can also have important effects on short-term personal interactions, such as the hiring process.
The first study uses a sample of teachers from around the world looking for a job in the United States and concludes that – for high-quality applicants – a strong propensity for self-evaluation increases the probability of finding a job from 51% to 73% . The second study confirms this effect in a radically different arena: lawyers applying for a position in the US military, in which case high-quality candidates increase their chances of receiving a job offer fivefold, from 3% to 17%, if they have a strong propensity for self-verification. An important caveat: the effect is only evident for good quality candidates; for others, the propensity for self-verification may even worsen the position.
The third study was intended to test the mechanism behind this effect. The researchers analyzed 300 people and selected those with very high or very low self-verification propensity. These individuals participated in a simulated job interview, the transcript of which was subjected to text analysis. Differences in language use were found as a function of candidates' propensity for self-assessment. People with a strong bias speak more fluently about themselves and are perceived as more authentic and less manipulative. Which explains why they do well in the job market. “They use more function words (prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs), which reflect a person's fluency in exposition, and more words related to visual perception (such as 'look', 'see', 'vision'),” he explains. Daniel Cable.
“In a job interview,” says Celia Moore, “we often try to present ourselves as perfect. Our study proves that instinct is wrong. Interviewers perceive too perfect a self-representation as inauthentic and potentially misleading. Ultimately, if you're a high-quality candidate, you can be yourself. You can be honest and authentic. And you will be more likely to get a job.”
