Deceptive Self-presentation in Job Search: Liminality and Deviance: Work In Progress Seminar with Santiago Campero

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Meeting passcode: 190839

Determining how best to present oneself to employers is a central part of searching for work. Such self-presentation strategies can involve some degree of deception, ranging from selective disclosures and embellishments to major fabrications of credentials and experience. The prevalence of deceptive self-presentation is of concern because it obfuscates the quality signals available to employers in hiring. In this paper, we theorize about the relationship between deceptive self-presentation and social proximity between employers and job seekers.  We argue that job seekers who are socially or geographically proximate to a firm are more likely to engage in strategic and ethically liminal resume adaptations that improve their chances of being hired. Proximate job seekers, however, are not more likely to engage in ethically deviant self-presentation strategies, such as fabricating prior employers. As a scope condition to our argument, we further posit that job seekers whose profiles are already known to the firm (e.g., passive job seekers) are less likely to engage in any resume adaptations. Using data from an applicant tracking system that allow us to compare the career histories that job candidates present to different employers, we find evidence consistent with these claims.