Emotions in the Hiring Procedure: How ‘Gut Feelings’ Rationalize Personnel Selection Decisions

Christian Imdorf

Chapter 4 in Emotionalizing Organizations and Organizing Emotions, 2010, pp 84-105 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Sociological research on personnel selection has repeatedly shown the significance of emotions and feelings when managers or other organizational gatekeepers make decisions about whom to hire. Even though managers think of themselves as rational, they often make their hiring decisions based on feelings rather than on facts (Miller/Rosenbaum 1997: 512). Emotions seem to guide even the most professionalized personnel specialists when they match vacant job positions to one out of numerous job candidates (Voswinkel 2008). Usually ‘gut reaction’ in hiring refers to face-to-face job interviews, when personnel specialists judge candidates’ characteristics such as interests, motivation, positive attitude, work ethic or self-presentation (Lee/Wrench 1983: 26; Neckerman/Kirschenman 1991: 441). ‘Gut feelings’ were repeatedly mentioned when Moss and Tilly (2001: 230) asked employers about how they judge job candidates’ self-presentation. Jenkins (1986: 61f.) goes beyond this restriction to job interviews and assumes that emotion-based judgements are crucial for decision-making in all contexts of the hiring process. Likewise, Eymard-Duvernay and Marchai (1997: 145ff.), in their talks with recruitment specialists, have observed the frequent occurrence of expressions of intuition and feelings from the very beginning of the recruitment processes when applications are initially screened.

Keywords: Work Organization; Expressive Emotion; Industrial World; Moral Emotion; Social Emotion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-28989-5_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230289895

DOI: 10.1057/9780230289895_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().