I was reading an interview on TheJobInnerview.com with Lou Adler. Lou is well-known in the recruiting space. You can read his interview at the link… but here’s a snippet that caught my eye:
Okay, three things that are common in people that Lou, a hiring expert, hires:
- Confidence
- Don’t mislead or fabricate
- Good asker of solid and insightful questions.
Wait, whu??
Seriously, of all of the attributes of successful hires, 1/3 of them is stating that the people DON’T LIE?
I get the other two… be confident, be smart… hm, maybe there were other things, like able to communicate their expertise, good hygiene, heck, even if he said they were all college-educated I wouldn’t be surprised.
But the fact that Lou felt like adding such a negative, horrible thing makes me wonder how prevalent this issue of lying (aka, misleading or fabricating) really is!
Seriously, if that is what we are coming to, we have issues.
Checklist for doing well in today’s interview:
__ Act confident (but not overly confident
__ Try really hard to not lie or embellish
__ Ask smart questions at the end
As Homer Simpson would say: “Doh!!”
All I know is I hope Lou’s experience, and response, isn’t influenced by anyone who uses JibberJobber! We’re smarter than that!
Jason, that was an impressive insight! Who woulda thunk that not lying could be that important?
Speaking particularly of resume lies: I do believe that the popularly cited “Lying on a resume” (by 50…52…53…70% of candidates, depending on the survey) is largely a “misstatement”. (Hmmm…not unlike the “statistics” in these surveys! All of which were found on page one of a google search just now…)
The definition of “lying on a resume” varies immensely. It can be blatant, like the “I graduated magna cum laude” of a jobseeker who completed only a semester at college. Or it can be the “incomplete resume” of a candidate who details the past 10 years of truly relevant experience and leaves off an irrelevant position from 20 years ago. (“She’s much older than I expected her to be – she lied!”)
Just pondering … thanks for your (and Lou Adler’s) food for thought!
Great points Debra, thanks for sharing!