Expectations and impressions in the graduate selection interview

Two investigations are described into the graduate recruitment interview held in one British University over two years. It was found that: interviewers' judgements of applicants were less favourable after the interview than before; interviews were used to amend impressions, and that these, especially the unfavourable ones, predicted judgements of suitability; applicants and interviewers had different prior expectations about the amount of time to be spent on various topics in the interview; the extent to which these expectations were experienced as met predicted interviewers' judgements of suitability; and both this variable and the impressions formed of the applicant predicted judgements of suitability over and above the initial judgements made on the basis of the application form only.