Oftentimes, job applicants run a gauntlet of various selection tests, assessments, and interviews, and it is important to understand how this may affect applicants’ reactions toward the organization. Providing job applicants with explanations for the various selection procedures is a cost-effective and easily implemented intervention. Better yet, researchers have recently found that explanations can positively impact applicants’ reactions toward the employment process and organization as a whole.
THE RESEARCH STUDY
The researchers (Truxillo et al., 2009) conducted a meta-analysis, or statistical combination of many past studies. First, the researchers found that explanations have a positive impact on job applicants’ fairness perceptions (e.g., how fair they perceive the selection process to be) and perceptions of the organization as a whole. Explanations were also found to have a more favorable impact on the fairness perceptions of personality tests compared to cognitive ability tests (although the relationship with cognitive ability tests is still favorable).
Interestingly, explanations have a positive effect on job applicant motivation, which positively impacts job applicants’ cognitive ability test scores. Finally, the researchers contrasted college student samples with real job applicant samples and found that the relationship between explanations and outcomes tends to be stronger for non-student samples. In other words, the results are stronger in “real world” situations.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Ultimately, there is little doubt that organizations should be concerned with job applicants’ reactions to the employment process. This study’s findings are encouraging because they suggest that providing explanations to applicants during the employment process is a cheap, fast, and effective way of improving job applicants’ reactions.
Truxillo, D.M., Bodner, M., Bertolino, T.N., Bauer, T.N., & Yonce, C.A. (2009). Effects of explanations on applicant reactions: A meta-analytic review. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 17(4), 346-361.
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