Method of Resumé Reproduction and Evaluations of Employment Suitability

Abstract

Personnel professionals and college undergraduates evaluated the credentials of job candidates whose résumés had been reproduced under four distinct conditions: professionally typeset and printed on tan paper; professionally printed on high-quality white paper but taken from a camera-ready typed original; photocopied on a high quality, clean machine; and photocopied on a poor quality, somewhat dirty machine. Professionals judged an individual more negatively when a poor photocopy was presented and showed modest preferences for the professionally prepared résumés over the good photocopy. Students' evaluations, how ever, did not differ reliably as a function of the four methods of reproduction. Implications of this difference in the reactions of students and professionals are discussed.

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