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Section 12
Applicant Perceptions During the Recruitment Process

Question 12 | Test | Table of Contents

In the last section we continued our discussion of the six reasons your client can be hired or screened out from a prospective job. We focused on the last three which are motivation, attitude, and network.

In this section we will discuss how your client can prove to a potential employer that he or she is the best candidate for the job by using selling points.

Marisa, age 30, was six when her family moved to the United States. She earned a two year business degree at a community college. She ended up working in claims within an insurance company. She wasn’t fully satisfied with the job even though she liked parts of the job.

She told me, "I was told that my job was one of a handful being eliminated due to downsizing. I was really down in the dumps for a few days. But I began to realize that this was my opportunity to figure out what I really want to do. I found that I am really interested in insurance and I know a lot about it. I want to be in charge and lead. I think I would be good at it because it is easy for me to meet people and put them at ease. Co-workers say I am enjoyable and easy to work with." From there Marisa and I looked at how she could prove that she was the best candidate for the insurance jobs she was beginning to interview for.

Marisa had applied and interviewed for an insurance management position that she was very qualified for. She did not get the job and she said to me with her voice shaking, "I totally blew it. I keep questioning why I didn’t get the job when I know I would be perfect for that position."

I stated to Marisa, "Every day there are thousands of candidates that are screened out from a job not because they were not right for the job but because they would be great for the job but just didn’t prove it. It is important to remember that the people interviewing you are not mind readers and do not know all of your abilities. You were very qualified for the job that you applied for you just didn’t offer clear enough evidence of how you would be great for the job."

3 Principles of Interview Selling Points
Could your Marisa benefit from a review of the following 3 principles of interview selling point skills?

1. Your selling points must be specific.
Everyone that will be interviewing for the same jobs can say that they are hardworking, dependable, and good at the required tasks. You have to take these generic selling points and add in specific evidence from your own personal experience. You can do this by giving facts about your accomplishments, clearly demonstrating that you naturally possesses what potential employers are looking for, having credible references to vouch for you, and having stories that paint a picture of you doing the job well.

2. Employers are more comfortable with verifiable proof from reliable sources like paid work history and formal education.
Specific information from work or formal education is the most concrete for employers to both see and verify. But this does not have to be the only place you get your examples from especially if this is not where you are stronges. If you have experience such as volunteering, internships, trial work experience, daily life, or hobbies or can express that you have natural ability or self-taught certain skills then express this to your interviewer.

3. Look at your qualifications from the point of view of an employer needing verification that you can do the job.
It is up to you to show your potential employer that the evidence that you are giving them can transfer to the job you are applying to. If you don’t see the connection between your experience and how it can be applied to doing the job, then most likely the potential employer can’t make this connection either.

Do you have an unemployed client like Marisa that may benefit from these three principles of interview selling points?

In this section, we discussed how your client can prove to a potential employer that he or she is the best candidate for the job. There are three important principles that your client can use to make sure that his or her selling points prove he or she can do the job.

The first is that their selling points must be specific. Your client can do this by giving facts about his or her accomplishments, clearly demonstrating that he or she naturally possesses what potential employers are looking for, having credible references to vouch for him or her, and having stories that paint a picture of him or her doing the job well.

The second principle is that employers are most comfortable with verifiable proof from reliable sources like paid work history and formal education. It is helpful for your client to have concrete evidence to show his or her potential employer his or her skills. If your client does not have examples from work experience or formal education, they could potentially use evidence from things such as volunteer experience, internships, trial work experience, daily life, or hobbies or can express that they have natural ability or self-taught certain skills then he or she can express this to the interviewer.

The final principle is to look at your qualifications from the point of view of an employer, needing verification that you can do the job. It is up to your client to show to his or her potential employer that that his or her evidence can transfer to the job.

In the next section we will discuss how your client can take their selling points and make them into facts so their potential employers can see that they can do the job.

Mac Dougall 53-56
case study: Deems 55
Reviewed 2023

Peer-Reviewed Journal Article References:
Hiemstra, A. M. F., Oostrom, J. K., Derous, E., Serlie, A. W., & Born, M. P. (2019). Applicant perceptions of initial job candidate screening with asynchronous job interviews: Does personality matter? Journal of Personnel Psychology, 18(3), 138–147. 

Landay, K., & DeArmond, S. (2018). Recruitment process outsourcing and recruiter and hiring firm characteristics: A two study investigation. Journal of Personnel Psychology, 17(4), 183–192.

Schäpers, P., Mussel, P., Lievens, F., König, C. J., Freudenstein, J.-P., & Krumm, S. (2020). The role of Situations in Situational Judgment Tests: Effects on construct saturation, predictive validity, and applicant perceptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(8), 800–818. 

Swider, B. W., Zimmerman, R. D., & Barrick, M. R. (2015). Searching for the right fit: Development of applicant person-organization fit perceptions during the recruitment process. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(3), 880–893.

QUESTION 12
What are the important principles for your client to make sure their selling points prove they can do the job? To select and enter your answer go to Test.

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