An Examination of Rapport in Interviews
Previous studies have demonstrated that rapport is an important concept in many different fields, but there is limited organizational research providing empirical support of its value in the personnel selection interview. Based on existing evidence from a range of disciplines, I hypothesized that applicant interview anxiety would be negatively related to interview performance, and that interviewer rapport building behaviors would moderate that relationship. Further, I hypothesized that rapport building would be negatively related to interviewee self-promotion behaviors and positively related to interviewee justice perceptions. These hypotheses were tested using a two-part survey given to 173 job candidates who had recently completed employment interviews. Additionally, a factor analysis was performed on a collection of rapport building items, and a single factor rapport building solution was extracted and used to measure rapport building in this study. Statistical analyses consisted of moderated hierarchical regression and moderated logistic regression. Results indicated that interview anxiety is negatively related to perceptions of performance, but not to objective interview outcomes. Rapport did not interact with either of these relationships. Results also demonstrated that increased rapport building was related to decreased candidate self-promotion behaviors and improved justice perceptions. Finally, post hoc analyses showed that interview anxiety mediated the relationships between rapport building and self-rated interview performance, self-promotion behaviors, and justice perceptions.