Introduction
The recruitment of new employees into the company is usually very essential to maintain a productive labor force. The process should be taken carefully because making a mistake can have serious repercussions on the company. How the process is undertaken usually reflects the culture of the institution. The process can be undertaken by the company itself or through a recruiting agency. The process usually has various steps which include application, short listing, interviewing, selecting and training which a candidate must pass through.
All the steps of recruitment may be affected by internal or external factors. In ensuring that the process is carried out properly, the recruitment team should have the necessary skills and experience. This paper seeks to discuss first impression as one of the factors affecting decision making in the recruitment process. The paper outlines its positive and negative effects in regard to selection of best applicant in the short listing and interview stages.
First impression
When one meets someone or a group of people, the way he/she presents himself is very important. This is because most people judge other people from their first impression (Lin, 2010). First impression has influence in decision making in the recruitment process (Skowronski & Ambady, 2008, p. 148).
The aim is usually to ensure that one fits within the company norms or culture. The recruitment being a very important activity to a company and the candidate as well, the recruitment team should be very curious not to make any wrong judgment. Wrong judgment would lock out the best candidate for the position and select least suitable candidates which may hinder the company from achieving its goals and objectives.
The first impression importance varies from one kind of job to the other. In most management systems, business and jobs involving social interaction, the candidate must give a good impression to the recruitment team as well as the customer in administering his duties once appointed for the position. In most technical jobs, it may not have much significance in the work output.
First impression significance can be argued to vary according to the job in question. There are some jobs which will require one to have a striking first impression for instance job which expose the employees of a company more to their clients while other may involve working at the back office and maybe mostly lonely. There is therefore a need to ensure that when first impression is being put into consideration, the job requirements in regard should also be considered.
Short listing
After advertising for a given position in a company through various means, the number of applications received is usually large. The application letters usually include those people who are qualified as well as those who are not qualified. The exercise is usually intended to be fair to all the applicants.
In selecting the candidates that best suits the position that was being advertised, first the applications are considered against the job requirements (Dale, 2004, p. 125). This usually eliminates a large number of applicants although still a large number of applicants pass to the next test.
To eliminate another group of people, one considers specific skills attributed to the position after which those applicants with additional skills are considered. At this stage of recruitment, the recruitment team has not yet met with the applicant and thus cannot give credit to them based on physical first impression.
The only available materials from the candidate are the application letters and other testimonials in which the way they are presented give varying impressions. The presentation of the applicants documents are used to create an impression of the kind of a person the applicant is.
In most cases, applicants take time to create and arrange their application papers in a smart way that will present them as the best candidates for the specific job being applied for. There is a likelihood that applicants may create a good impression that what actually they are. This is the reason why interviews are followed after the short listing process so as to verify some or all the qualities that are presented in the documents.
Interviewing
This usually follows short listing of the candidates. The candidates usually get a chance to express themselves as well as interact with the interviewers. There are various types of interviews: telephone interview, video interview, behavioral interview, information interview, group interview and panel interview among others (Darlington & Schuman, 2008). In these interviews the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee may be face to face or conversational through phone.
At this time the interviewee is given a chance to sell him/herself. Depending on the type of interview, the interviewer is able to get certain traits from the applicants through the first impression by using various interview methods. There are some traits which are attached to certain jobs and thus the interviewer has to ensure that they are keenly analyzed (Elearn, 2009). This helps to select the candidates who do not require intensive training so as to fit into the job specifications well.
Effects of First impression on short listing and interviewing
At the short listing stage there is no direct interaction between the candidates and the recruitment team. This thus denies the recruitment team a chance to shortlist without basing their consideration on first impression with the exemption of just using the impression created by the applicant’s documents. It thus avoids possible mistakes that may arise later to be associated with wrong judgment at short listing stage that could be based on first impression judgment.
Carrying out an interview makes it possible to ascertain the impression created through the documents sent by the applicant. During interviews, the recruiting team is able to get some characters that may be necessary in the work conduction. In this case, making the right character selection ensures that work output will improve (Davies, 1990).
For example, in the selection of a receptionist, the interaction he or she has with other people including the customer is very vital. If the interaction is good then the results are favorable but when it is bad, serious problems may arise. Thus the judgment on first impression may help in selecting the best candidate that fits well with the position being recruited for (Demarais & White, 2006).
On the other hand, there are some people who may not give the right first impression as may be expected by the recruitment team but fits very well in the job specification. It is significant that the recruitment team goes a step further to ensure that incase a candidate has a wrong first impression it is found out whether he/she really fits in the job description well (Anon, 2011). This is important because first impression can be worked on using fewer resources than for instance training a person on technical issues.
This thus means that first impression may make the company to lose the best qualified worker in the interview. This kind of mistakes is usually prevalent in technical job recruitment. In these jobs, a person may not present himself very well but when given a technical interview, he performs very well. Such mistakes may lower the workforce productivity which may hinder the company from achieving its set goals and objectives (Mahoney, 2006).
This is mainly because the prediction of the candidate’s performance in the job may not be directly related to his/her personality. This judgment is mainly used in behavioral interview. Thus, some judgment in the recruitment based on first impression may have serious repercussions on the company’s performance in future. To avoid the occurrence of such mistakes, more analysis which could be in the form of tests should be undertaken (Burns, 2006).
The recruitment process can thus be influenced by various factors including first impression. These factors have either positive effect, negative effect or both and thus proper analysis should be undertaken so as to eliminate the possibility of adverse effects on recruitment. The effect may vary depending on the various the various recruitment methods used (Rathus & Nevid, 2010).
Conclusion
Recruitment is an expensive and crucial activity undertaken by the company. The issue of first impression usually plays a significant role in the initial judgment of a person. The judgment may be biased and may not reflect the true character of the candidates. This thus would have negative repercussions on the company development. On the other hand one can be able to get the traits possessed by a person that are crucial for a specific job.
This thus means that there are both positive and negative attributes of first impression on the short listing and interviewing of candidates for a given job. To avoid the negative effects, the interviewer should be flexible not to make conclusions from the first impression. This is due to the fact that human beings are not at their best always. Thus successive tests should be undertaken to make sure that the best candidate is selected for the position.
References
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