Relationships Between Interview Selection Decisions and Perceptions of Applicant Similarity to an Ideal Employee and Self: A Field Study

Previous research has shown that interviewers' final decisions were related to: [a] the degree of similarity between the interviewers' perception of the ideal employee and the applicant, and [b] the degree of similarity between the interviewers' self-perception and the applicant. The purpose of the present field study was to determine which variable (similarity to the ideal or similarity to the self) was more highly related to the interviewers' final decision. Thirty-seven applicants were interviewed by five interviewers in structured board interviews. The results indicated that final decisions were related more to the ideal-applicant match than to the self-applicant match. The implications of these results for interviewer training and future research were discussed.