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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 668

Part of Session 153: Working in the City (Other abstracts in this session)

‘I consider myself a specialist’ – a multimodal perspective on believable professional identity construction in a job interview

Authors: Kusmierczyk, Ewa
Submitted by: Kusmierczyk, Ewa (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)

The job interview is a crucial stage in an individual’s transition into new employment. It forms an integral part of workplace discourse and is typically carried out in urban settings. As a gatekeeping encounter, it reflects the existing workplace ideologies and is a site of professional and social identity construction. Research on job interviews has shown that establishing trust with the interviewer (Kerekes, 2006) and constructing a believable professional identity (Roberts & Campbell, 2006) are key elements that promote positive outcomes. In order to achieve it, prospective employees are expected to demonstrate situational competency characterized by their ability to synthesize various discourses (Iedema, 2003).

This process takes place in a face-to-face setting in which speech is only one of many resources available to the participants - modes such as gesture, gaze, as well as written text all intersect with speech in meaning-making, hence need to be considered. This paper extends the existing research on gatekeeping by applying a multimodal approach. Such a methodology considers interaction as an ‘ensemble’ in which participants utilise different resources in realizing social functions and co-constructing meaning (Jewitt, 2009).

In my presentation I investigate how various modes build upon each other in the process of negotiating candidate’s professional identity. Multimodal Interaction Analysis is employed as a tool for observing how interview participants action personal, professional and institutional discourses for self-presentation. I observe how these actions contribute to different styles of self-promotion which can move along an authoritative-mitigated-self-effacing continuum. I focus in particular on a candidate’s background presentation which typically opens the interview and becomes a site for initial identity construction. I draw attention to the notion of ‘co-authoring’ (Roberts & Campbell, 2006) as it emerges through the interviewer’s contributions to the candidate’s self-presentation and discuss it as evidence of accumulating trust and perceived credibility.

The main contribution of this paper lies in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the subtleties of identity construction in workplace discourse. Observing how the candidate’s professional identity is interpreted and reinterpreted across different modes can shed more light on the process of evaluation and assist in providing tools for enhancing candidates’ and interviewers’ awareness of their practices.

References: 

Iedema, R. (2003). Multimodality, resemiotization: extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication, 2(1), 29-57.

Jewitt, C. (2009). An introduction to multimodality. In C. Jewitt (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (pp. 14-27). Routledge.

Kerekes, J. (2006). Winning an interviewer’s trust in a gatekeeping encounter. Language in Society, 35(01).

Roberts, C., & Campbell, S. (2006). Talk on Trial: Job interviews, language and ethnicity. Research Report-Department For Work and Pensions, Retrieved from http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2005-2006/rrep344.pdf