Scripted authenticity in high-stakes professional selection: A qualitative process model of teacher candidates' identity construction

High-stakes professional selection requires applicants to transform heterogeneous life experiences into a coherent and credible account of who they are as professionals. Interview research has documented impression-management tactics and their associations with ratings, but it has paid less attention to the pre-evaluative psychological work through which applicants construct identities that can be communicated under time pressure. This retrospective qualitative study analyzed 36 teacher-candidate trajectories documented in 2021 within a career-development practice in China's Greater Bay Area that operated from 2021 to 2025. The corpus included application artifacts, self-introduction drafts, coaching materials, practice records, participant feedback, and non-causal trajectory information; 12 information-rich cases were selected for intensive cross-case analysis. Reflexive thematic and narrative-process analyses identified five linked processes: autobiographical resource appraisal, narrative integration, identity signaling, scripted authenticity, and embodied emotion regulation. Candidates reported that structured preparation helped them connect experiences to intended signals of competence, commitment, and relational fit, while artifact comparison showed convergent ways of appearing distinctive among those using shared templates. Case records indicated that formal credential gates, selection stages, and unequal access to individualized support limited whether candidates reached stages at which these signals could be displayed; cross-border credentials had to be made admissible before becoming meaningful. The study proposes a candidate-side process model linking narrative identity, self-presentation, person perception, and emotion regulation. It does not infer evaluator judgments, causal hiring effects, or classroom competence. The findings clarify how candidates psychologically organize professional selves for high-stakes evaluation and why preparation can be experienced as enabling while standardizing presentations.