When a person applies for a job and is granted an interview, they are naturally motivated to present themselves as favorably as possible. How might this lead to intentional or even unintentional "faking"? What forms might this faking take?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

"Faking" in an employment interview—which occurs whenever a job applicant
consciously presents himself or herself in distorted ways in order to create a favorable
impression—may well compromise the predictive validity of the process. For that
reason, researchers have recently sought to develop a questionnaire that measures
faking. In a series of studies, Julia Levishing and Michael Campion (2007) asked
hundreds of college seniors who were active on the job market to anonymously rate the
degree to which they engaged in various faking behaviors during their most recent
interviews. Some of the behaviors involved outright lying ("I claimed that I have skills I
do not have")? others involved forms of exaggeration ("I exaggerated my
responsibilities on previous jobs"), ingratiation ("I
laughed at the interviewer's jokes even when they were not funny"), and image
protection ("When asked directly, I did not mention some problems that I had in past
jobs"). It will be interesting in future research to see whether applicants' responses on
this questionnaire can be used to predict their success or failure—not only during the
interview process but also later on the job.