Are You Recruiting Candidates Who Lie?

A University of Massachusetts study found that 60 percent of adults could not have a 10-minute conversation without lying at least once.

Every time you overreport a metric, underreport a cost, are less than honest with a client or a member of your team, you create a false reality and you start living in it. - Rebekah Campbell, chief executive of Posse

If you haven't already started thinking about candidates or employees that lie to you, you should start now.

In my time running a company, I have come across different archetypes of people who are trying to sell me. 1. The Liar/Cheat and 2. The Genuine Article.

We run through a simple process to determine the best fit for us; either in partners, vendors, or new employees.

The first thing we do is get smarter on the science behind lying. With a little effort, it is actually very simple to determine if someone is lying.

Here are a few tips I have learned to tell a liar and cheat from the real deal.

The Liar/Cheat Archetype

1. Uses the third person instead of “I” and “me.”

2. Stands Very Still - focusing with a purpose of intimidating with little blinking.

3. Talks too much, adds too much detail and repeats words or phrases

4. Touches or covers their mouth or other body parts

5. Has sudden lip biting, pursed lips, or finger pointing.

6. Shows obvious inconsistencies in their stories and provides long answers to challenging and unexpected questions.

Liars and cheats can cause incredible havoc in an organization: costing millions of dollars of wasted energy, time, knowledge transfer and monetary investment.

Be willing to ask the challenging questions, keep your diagnostic lenses on, and know when you are being taken advantage of. The #1 job you have as a recruiter, CEO, or business line head is to find individuals who will follow-through and be personally accountable for key solutions to business strategies and challenges in an expeditious manner. Don’t waste your time on people who will have other objectives in mind, are rude, late to appointments, lie to get ahead, or just want to spend/take your money. You need partners who have specific solutions, aggressive milestones, and will give you the specific results you desire.

We have a very specific way of determining liars and cheats from the Genuine Article during interviews.

The interview experience that happens the most for us with the liar or cheat typically follows the pattern below. There are some deviations of this pattern, however we have found this flow-chart seems to be the predominant pattern and most helpful for making decisions.

The Liar/Cheat Interview

And conversely, we have found this process leads to the best outcomes. The following process does 4 things that helps us to begin the process of trust-building:

1. They prove from past work that they have been rated high, and have specific endorsements and evidence to their successes. They show improvement from past work and a consistent willingness to get better, become accountable and adapt to new situations and challenges.

2. They have immediate solutions to challenges that are based on real actionable milestones and exceptionable items rather than stories, theory, or pontification.

3. Specific timelines are discussed, and a true desire to help and achieve these outcomes no matter what the time investment is expressed. One of the biggest impediments to success is when a consultant or employee begins talking about the number of hours he/she will be working. If they are not focused on the products, and don't really care about enabling their success, then there is a mis-fit from the beginning. In today's culture, people are more apt to build out businesses that don't care as much about your success as they do their own, which will leave you with a big bill, and a lot more work to do.

The Success Interview

The tips for discovering liars and cheats were found from two impressive researchers and their books/bodies of work on these topics.

Dr. Lillian Glass who worked with the FBI on unmasking signals of deception, says in her book "The Body Language of Liars," that “when trying to figure out if someone is lying, you first need to understand how the person normally acts. Then you'll want to pay careful attention to their facial expressions, body language, and speech patterns.”

Jeffrey Hancock, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University studies online lying.

What ways do you notice people are lying? How do you work your way through your perceptions and into truth with candidates? What is your process/model for interviewing?

We developed an online 360-degree SaaS assessment tool that helps employees to get consistent feedback, based on the messages in this article. See the video online at: https://www.skillrater.com. If you are interested in a demo contact us using this form or become a member of Best Practice Institute, our association for executives, consultants, and thought leaders at all levels to pioneer and share best and innovative practices in leadership and management

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Here are some of my past blogs on linkedin:
The Cost of Lying and What to Do About It
https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/your-candidates-lying-louis-carter?trk=prof-post
Is Your Brain or Game Theory Sabotoging Your Success?https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/your-game-brain-way-success-louis-carter?trk=prof-post
The Neuroscience of Conversation
https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/neuroscience-conversation-louis-carter?trk=prof-post