Impact of assertive and defensive impression management tactics on recruiter evaluation: The case of post-failure entrepreneurs in employment interviews

This study investigates how human-resource professionals examine, during a job interview, the application of post-bankruptcy entrepreneurs seeking to rebound as salaried workers. We assume that the way candidates talk about their failure (impression management tactics—IM) impacts the assessment of the recruiter. Thanks to an experimental methodology we compare the impact of three distinct IM tactics on the assessment of the hiring manager (a defensive IM tactic based on excuses, a defensive IM tactic based on justification, and an assertive IM tactic). We demonstrate that recruiters are more inclined to recruit the post-bankruptcy entrepreneur if the candidate has been able to turn the ordeal into an element of self-valorization.