Critical Evaluation Of Application Materials

Oxford Economics (2014) revealed that it costs over £30,000 to replace and hire employees due namely to the time taken for new recruits to reach an optimum productivity level. Therefore, the recruitment process is highly important in selecting the best applicant for the role. Currently, the cover letter and curriculum vitae (CV) are the most widely used preliminary screening tools, followed by a face-to-face interview (Burns, Christiansen, Morris, Periard & Coaster, 2014). 

Application materials should allow a fair and unbiased method of screening applicants, regardless of gender, age and ethnicity, ensuring equality and diversity in the workplace. However, candidates are more commonly using impression management (IM) techniques (where they control the images presented to the employer) and manipulating their verbal and non-verbal behaviours to ensure their success. To make a more robust application process, employers could implement more advanced procedures to aid in hiring decisions.

Research has found that employers spend less than 30 seconds perusing a cover letter (WetFeet & Ebrary, 2014), highlighting the importance of presentation in this first stage. This adds weight to the importance of checking over the letter, as three-quarters of employers become disengaged if a candidate uses poor spelling and grammar (BBC, 2006). Another essential part of a cover letter is showing evidence of researching a company. Innes (2009) suggests that carefully tailoring the letter in this manner makes applicants more likely to achieve desired results, such as job offer

Furthermore, the technique of complimenting the organisation utilises key IM techniques, such as ingratiation. However, this could provide problems for the employer as such tactics may disrupt the validity of the letter as a selection tool as recruiters may hire applicants that are better impression managers than those who have better skills (Anderson, Lievens, van Dam, & Ryan, 2004).Therefore, rather than leaving the hiring decision to an employer’s intuition, a data-based decision making model could be instead that determines what single factor has the biggest impact on successful hiring (Sullivan, 2016 ). Additionally, implementing cognitive ability tests could ensure a more robust method of recruitment as they have been found to be the best indicators of future job performance (Anderson, 2008). In addition, an anonymous application procedure (AAP) could be used that removes the candidate’s name, country of origin and gender (Åslund & Skans, 2016), ensuring gender or racial discrimination plays no part in the employers’ selection process. 

National Citizen Service research suggests employers spend as little as 8.8 seconds scanning CVs (Independent, 2015) meaning it is essential that candidates only include relevant information. Kolin (2012) further states that the more key terms used replicating the job criteria, the higher the chance of an interview. Subsequently, the relationship between CV content influencing selection decisions goes much further social cognitive theories (including attribution theory and cognitive schema theory) interlink in a recruiters’ evaluating process (Tsai, Chi, Huang & Hsu, 2011). The role of cognitive schemas in associating attributes with categories of information applies to how recruiters match their understanding of the job criteria with their developed schemas in the CV. More specifically, role schemas encompass the understanding the recruiter has of how an applicant has behaved when occupying a certain role and can be used to predict their future behaviours, characteristics and suitability for the job (Tsai et al, 2011). Adding to this process, recruiters use attribution theory (drawing on informational cues to assess whether cause of behaviour as internal or external) when seeking information regarding the candidates’ skills to evaluate their personality, abilities and job-fit. Recruiters determine a higher person-job (P-J) fit (ability to meet job demands) and person-organisation (P-O) fit (applicants’ organisational values) with an applicants’ dispositional (internal) attributions (Cole, Rubin, Field & Giles, 2007). Therefore, if organisations employ selective practices to help recruiters infer applicants with higher levels of P-J and P-O fit, it could lead to lower rates of absenteeism and higher rates of organisational commitment making the company more cost-effective (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005).

Fuller and Zickar (2004) argue that when employers make hiring decisions, their primary criterion is mostly based on interview performance subjective impressions have been found to be more significant than paper credentials when it comes to selection decisions (Dipboye, 1992). These initial impressions have been found to influence the recruiters’ overall evaluations of the applicant (Barrick, Dustin, Giluk, Stewart, Shaffer, & Swider., 2012). Furthermore, having an assertive communication style is rated most highly by employers (Gallois, Callan & McKenzie-Palmer 1992). In the rest of the interview, both candidates show their skill at discerning the employers’ targeted criteria in his questions leading to a better, more positive performance evaluation (Ingold, Kleinmann, Konig, Melchers, & Van Iddekinge, 2015). 

Barrick et al, (2012) found that good verbal skill positively impacts recruiters’ impressions. This would imply that conveying extraversion and confidence in answering questions is highly recommended when utilising verbal skills.  In terms of non-verbal skills, Chen and Lin (2014) found that recruiters’ cognitive processes, such as their beliefs of a candidate’s potential P-J and P-O fit and their subsequent decision to hire are influenced by an applicants’ use of non-verbal (maintaining eye contact and smiling) IM tactics. Therefore, applicants can manipulate their body language and use non-verbal IM tactics to elicit greater positive emotions in the recruiter, shaping their fit perceptions and their hiring recommendations (Chen et al, 2014).