Performing Employability: A Goffmanian Analysis of Algorithmic Recruitment and Impression Management

Contemporary recruitment and selection processes have increasingly been mediated by digital technologies and algorithmic systems, often presented as instruments of objectivity and efficiency. Drawing on Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective, this article conceptualizes recruitment as an institutional performance setting in which self-presentation is structured by the distinction between front stage and back stage[1]. Based on a comparative study of candidates exposed to an in-person model and a technology/algorithm-mediated model, using simulated data for analytical purposes, we examine differences in impression management, emotional labor, and performative preparation. Results indicate that algorithmic mediation intensifies perceived surveillance, expands and ‘colonizes’ the back stage (increasing invisible preparatory work), and reconfigures the psychological mechanisms of impression management, while weakening perceptions of fairness and legitimacy. These findings underscore the persistence of power dynamics and inequality in selection processes, even under the appearance of technical rationality. [1] The expressions front stage and back stage are used according to Goffman's (1959) original terminology, keeping the spelling in two words because they are specific analytical concepts of the dramaturgical approach.