Effects of stress interviews on selection/recruitment function of employment interviews

Abstract

Stress interviews can help interviewers effectively measure and evaluate job applicants’ emotion regulation in highly stressful settings. This research uses 90 applicants and 62 interviewers as a sample in real interview settings. Results show that there was a positive relationship between interviewers’ use of stress interviews and the interviewers’ accuracy in assessing applicants’ emotion-regulation abilities, but that there was a negative relationship between interviewers’ use of stress interviews and applicants’ perceptions of interviewer friendliness and organizational attraction. Implications of this study's findings, contributions, and limitations, as well as future research directions, are discussed.