First Impressions & Recruitment

In the process of a job interview, a candidate tries to be at their best behaviour and an employer’s goal is to choose a candidate accurately. However, first impressions can directly impact the employer’s choice. The initial little seconds when the candidate enters the room and shakes hands with the employer, the employer makes certain perceptions about the candidate. Even though a lot of other factors influence the employer’s decision-making process, the first impressions happen to be one of the major influence. As much as we like to preach the phrase “never judge a book by its cover”, we all tend to do it regardless.

This blog will shed light upon factors that employers must know about first impressions.

1. Inappropriate long-lasting impressions: Within the initial few minutes of an interview, the employee knows if they want to hire the candidate or not. This is because the first impression is often long lasting. This way, the employer builds a certain perception about the candidate almost instantly and this perception is difficult to shift. This restricts the employee to look past the perception and understand the candidate better. These perceptions or rather judgments are assumed to be facts. This creates a major gap in recruitment and also causes a great loss to the organisation. First impressions might be a natural instinct but in terms of recruitment, first impressions that last long might adversely affect the company.

2. Impressions shaped by bias: From the things mentioned above, one could easily determine that first impressions make people form a perception for future understanding of a person. But the truth remains that the first impression of somebody can never determine how they would be at their job. Moreover, one cannot develop a perception just after shaking hands or seeing a person’s dressing style. It is the personal bias that helps the employee to form the perception. Some biases are based on cultures whereas some are simply based on looks. Research says that attractive people are more likely to be hired. Likewise, a person with tattoos or dreadlocks is often looked down upon in an interview even though they could be brilliant at their job! A similar example would be cultural biases. People are often judged on the basis of their race and cultural backgrounds. It is essential that recruiters recognise their biases in order to avoid losing undervalued candidates.

3. Impact on performance as a recruiter: It may seem like only negative first impressions have adverse impacts. In recruitment, positive ones can be equally harmful ! When a candidate makes a good first impression, recruiters tend to portray good regard towards the candidate and in return gather very less information. In the long run, the recruiter’s performance gets affected. It is highly important that the evaluation of candidates remains consistent regardless of the first impressions in the recruiter’s mind. First impressions being a two way street can adversely impact the recruiter as well as the candidate. Recruiters are expected to hire smartly in a way that the candidate can sustain in a job.

First Impressions can be a dicey concept in terms of recruitment. Some jobs require social skills. In these situations, first impressions might not cause negative effects. Although, most occupations require thorough evaluations of multiple skills and first impressions need to be secondary in the decision making process.

REFERENCES:

LinkedIn (2019). 5 Things Every Recruiter Needs to Know About First Impressions. [online] Available at: https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/trends-and-research/2018/things-every-recruiter-needs-to-know-about-first-impressions [Accessed 31 May 2019].

Monash Blog. (2019). Can you trust first impressions when making hiring decisions? | Monash Talent. [online] Available at: https://www.monash.edu/talent/blog/recruiting-graduates/first-impressions-count-but-should-they/ [Accessed 31 May 2019].

Vice. (2019). Your First Impressions of Most People Are Totally Wrong. [online] Available at: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbg7x3/your-first-impressions-of-most-people-are-totally-wrong [Accessed 31 May 2019].