While entering my last year of undergraduate coursework, I have been tirelessly preparing for graduate school. Mulling over an endless list of graduate programs and carefully considering all options, I compiled a list of programs that best fit my academic and career objectives. Excited about the prospect of advancing my education and taking the next step in achieving my career goals, I selected the school at the top of my list and began the task of completing the application. After a long journey of piecing together all the application requirements and composing well-reflected essays, my efforts paid off, and I was selected for an interview. Prior to attending, I dedicated time towards researching and preparing myself for possible questions that may be asked during the interview. Although, unbeknown to me at the time, there was little I could do to prepare myself for what I was about to encounter.
The interview was on a Friday and scheduled to last all day. Selected candidates were asked to check-in at eight-thirty in the morning and were not expected to finish until about three o’clock in the afternoon. The interview began with all candidates and committee members gathering in a large room. During the first half hour, prospective students and committee members did a formal introduction. After the initial introduction, candidates were divided into three groups and taken to separate rooms to be evaluated during a prearranged group activity. The group I was selected to be in was paired with another group so, including myself, there were a total of four candidates. During the group activity, we were presented with a box that was filled with various objects and asked to use the materials to construct a presentation. After being provided with a topic, we were given thirty-minutes to arrange a presentation and fifteen minutes to present it to the committee. Once we completed the presentation, we were then required to participate in a thirty-minute long group discussion.
During the process of creating a presentation and maintaining a group discussion, the committee was sitting nearby and assessing our performance. Aware that our performance was under close evaluation, we would often look to the committee in search for some type of feedback. The evaluating committee, however, would not provide us with any feedback and throughout the entire process they steadily maintained an emotionless expression. From time-to-time, members would jot down notes but that was the extent of the feedback we received throughout the entire evaluation.
After finishing the first half of the interview process, we took a break for lunch in the cafeteria. While sitting in the cafeteria, candidates from the other group also came down for lunch. As I began talking with candidates from the other group about the morning events, I quickly discovered that their experience was entirely different from what my group had encountered. The other group was required to create a presentation and participate in a group discussion but, instead of being unresponsive, the evaluating committee members provided the group with feedback. According to one of the candidates, the committee members were asking questions and even engaged in their group discussion.
The variation in experience immediately grabbed my attention. After learning about the difference in experience, I sat back and began to observe the candidates. While observing, I noticed a significant difference in attitude and perspective. The group that received feedback appeared much more enthusiastic and hopeful about being accepted into the program. They looked relaxed and even optimistic about moving forward with the rest of the interview process. The group that I was in did not appear to share the same level of enthusiasm as the other group displayed. My group spent a lot of time questioning their performance and was much more doubtful about gaining admission into the program. There was an increased level of anxiety, and we were all, including myself, nervous about what the rest of the interview process was going to entail.
The second half of the process was, thankfully, not nearly as stressful, but the morning events seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day. Towards the end of the interview, candidates outside of my group exhibited a similar level of enthusiasm and members within my group continued to express some uncertainty. I cannot explain why there was such a difference in the committee’s approach, but I am certain it was not a negative reflection of the candidates’ performance. There did, however, appear to be a direct relationship between the committee’s approach and the candidate’s behavior and perception. This particular experience explores several different theories. Although, in relation to theories in organization, the committee’s approach and the influence that it had on the candidate’s behavior serves to illustrate the effects of communication and nonverbal feedback.
I think your post does an excellent job of describing and showing how nonverbal communication from interviewers can affect the thoughts and emotions of applicants. It was very intriguing to read about how the interview process for this particular grad school was completely different between the two groups. It actually made me wonder if maybe the interviewing panel was possibly conducting an experiment to see how their behaviors influenced the candidates’ behaviors.
Your interview experience reminds me of the Linden, Martin, and Parsons (1993) experiment described in Chapter 10 of the text where the interviewers treated the job applicants either warmly or coldly during the interview process. The results appear to be nearly the same as your experience – the applicants that received the cold, icy treatment were viewed negatively in comparison to those who received the warm interviewer (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).
References
Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
I can not imagine how it would feel to go through an experience like this. I would have felt so uncomfortable if I were in your situation and after learning that the other group had verbal communication with the observers I would have probably been furious. My question is where do you feel this falls into category wise in this chapter?
I personally feel that this is a great example of determinants of job satisfaction. By them doing this to your group, your group had a negative feeling about the job you were doing as the other group had positive feelings. As you said this showed in everyone’s attitudes and expressions. I feel that the observers were looking at you guys based on job characteristics. Obviously they wanted to see how well each of you compared to the job characteristics of skill variety, task identity, task significance, job feedback, and autonomy. These are all things every employer are going to be looking at when searching for new employees. As for them giving one group communication and the other not, I think they were trying to see what type of reactions they were going to get from each group. This could been a test for social and organizational factors by trying to see what type of reactions people have in different situations.