Based upon the data I collected from surveys and interviews, I can now answer my original research question, “Between in person communication, phone conversation, and email, which media of communication is more appealing to prospective employees and employers for use during the interview and hiring process? Why, if any, is there a difference between preferences between employers and potential employees?” I found that the most appealing media of communication during the interview and hiring period is face to face communication for both employers and employees. There are slightly more employees that prefer phone conversation than employers. My findings suggest that this difference is caused by variances of what employers and employees look to achieve and get out of the interview process. The differences do not seem to correspond the perceived popularity of the media in business today. Employers, during interviews, choose face to face communication because they find that it is the most efficient and most personable media to gain a thorough understanding of their candidates. Employees, during interviews, mostly choose face to face as well, but because they perceive this medium to be the least pressurizing and easiest to use.
Comparing my findings with the research conducted in the annotated bibliography, I found it very interesting that despite how much business changes and shifts into relying more of technology, the interview and hiring process is not impacted by these changes. Sources within the annotated bibliography all found that, whether beneficial or detrimental, businesses today are considering digital and virtual technologies for communication. Suchan’s The Communication Characteristics of Virtual Teams: A Case Study, Townsend’s Virtual Teams: Technology and the Workplace of the Future, and Andersona’s Virtualteam meetings: An analysis of communication and context all researched communication media and impact on business today since virtual teams seem to be gaining popularity in the business world, showing that businesses today are relying more on technology. My research, a little counter intuitively, found that the hiring process for these same businesses is not following this same trend.
The discoveries made through my research can also be applied into making better communication media specifically for the hiring and interview process in the future. Knowing that employers are concerned with choosing more personable and efficient media, communication media developers can improve the media they create to allow elements that would allow it to be as efficient and personable as is face to face communication. Similarly, ease of use can be improved for communication media to make it more appealing for employees. Prior research seems to support some of the flaws employers and employees listed with digital media such as email and phone conversation. McLoughlin’s Technology, Organizations and Innovation: Towards ‘real virtuality’, for example, highlights the drawbacks of digital communication media as opposed to face to face communication. McLoughlin found that face to face communication enables one to gain cues through facial expressions, allowing a greater understanding of what the person is thinking. This is consistent with my findings since employers and employees both felt that digital media lacked some of the personable-ness that face to face communication allowed. Another study, Lengel’s The Selection of Communication Media as an Executive Skill stated that comparing digital communication media with face to face communication is comparing the advantages of efficiency and quality of dialogue. Lengel claims that digital communication has greater efficiency than face to face communication. My research seems to disagree with this study since employers, in the interview process at least, found face to face communication to actually be better than other digital communication because it was more efficient.
While my findings indicate improvements that could be made to improve digital communication technology to satisfy both employer and employee needs so it can be as useful as face to face communication during the hiring process, my research also highlights the underlying necessity and irreplaceability of face to face communication. No matter how much the world and business may shift to the virtual and digital realm, there will always be a place for face to face communication.