Fundamentals of Impression Management: Applications to the Employment of Individuals With Disabilities

This chapter outlines the importance of impression management in the job interviewing process, provides a theoretical framework for understanding impression management, and discusses the major impression management techniques that can be applied to job interviewing and employment for people with disabilities. The primary goal of vocational rehabilitation is to assist people with disabilities obtain and retain employment. The origin of impression management (IM) goes back thousands of years when one’s survival might have been dependent on what others thought and how an individual was perceived by others. The cybernetic model of IM provides a theoretical framework for understanding how a positive impression of an individual can be formed as the result of an interpersonal exchange with another individual or environment. The individual’s placement within a given social network can contribute to the extent an individual employs impression management activities.