Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (28 page)

Many applicants will tailor their résumés for a specific company to better reflect a match between their own knowledge, skills, and abilities and those described in the company’s advertisement. This is actually a reasonable approach to take, as it highlights what is important to the hiring company and makes one’s résumé stand out among the many others. However, doing this assumes that one truly has the qualifications and experience cited. Psychopaths, notorious liars, often will cross the line between good marketing and outright lying. In our work with psychopaths, we have seen résumés that contain jobs the applicant never held, companies that never existed, promotions
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that never happened, professional memberships that do not exist, awards and commendations never received, letters of recommendation written by applicants themselves, even fake education, degrees, and professional credentials (for example, a license to practice medicine), among others.

To uncover possible psychopathic deceit, it is essential that every piece of information contained on the résumé be verified. This is time intensive but worth the effort. However, résumé verification is usually done after the interviewing phase, when the choice is down to two or three candidates, and always after the candidates give permission to do so. This puts the hiring manager at a disadvantage during the interview, because he or she has only the résumé data to go on, and the psychopath is so good at lying.

At the very least, education and professional credentials should be checked before the initial interview. Education can be verified through the registrar’s office at the university cited on the résumé, and should include type of degree (such as a BS/BA or MS), year, and area (finance, business, engineering, and so on). Sometimes applicants misrepresent their actual degree by substituting something that sounds more impressive (for example, engineering is a more difficult field of study than engineering technology). These details should be carefully checked.

Professional credentials and licenses, especially those granted by the government to protect the public from abuse (such as in the fields of medicine, psychology, engineering, and others) can be checked through the appropriate authorities. Many governments and professional societies have online databases that can be searched quite easily. Internet search engines such as Google can be very helpful in obtaining information about candidates, some of whom will have their own web page.

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Faking It

A medical doctor was sentenced to prison for fraud. But this was not a simple case of bilking people of their money. Instead, he received millions of dollars from pharmaceutical firms to conduct scores of research projects involving human subjects. Unfortunately for the sponsoring firms, many of the research protocols he generated for them were made up, fudged, or otherwise fake.

For example, he bought urine from his employees and passed it off as having come from patients in his “research” projects. Investigators described what he had done as “one of the most corrupt research enterprises ever discovered by law enforcement.”

Following his conviction, the doctor offered to cooperate with investigators to expose other doctors involved in phony medical research. He also expressed concern at being “visualized as nothing more than a common crook.” But there is nothing at all common about callous greed that puts the health of others at risk.

Also, because advanced degrees often require the writing of theses or dissertations, and seasoned technical professionals sometimes write articles and scientific papers, cautious companies may find it worthwhile to get a copy of these documents and let their technical staff read and assess them. Google Scholar is a good resource for this purpose.

The weak point in screening résumés, at least for the company wishing to avoid hiring a psychopath, is, of course, the résumé itself.

Unfortunately, other than uncovering the most outrageous lies, little can be done to assure the accuracy of this initial screen. In general, one should not be too blinded by an impressive résumé. The job of the résumé is to get the applicant in the door—the first hurdle—but deeper digging is necessary to assure that what has impressed you is accurate.

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SCREENING INTERVIEW 1

Individuals whose résumés seem to be a good fit for the open position are invited for an interview or series of interviews. Sometimes the first contact is by phone, an approach that saves the company considerable time and expense and allows a larger pool of candidates to be seriously considered. Telephone interviews benefit the applicants as well, because many more of them get a serious shot at the job than can be afforded by face-to-face interviewing alone.

The telephone interview is designed to get to know the candidate on a more personal level and to collect more details about his or her work experience. Typically, a candidate’s motivations and personal interest in the job can be explored by asking questions like, “Tell me more about . . .” and “What got you interested in applying for this job?” A savvy candidate can catch glimmers of what the company is looking for and strategically offer examples of work experience that respond to their often unspoken concerns; those with good communication skills can, thereby, advance their candidacy. Psychopaths, of course, are quite astute at noticing what others need to hear and will begin their verbal manipulation during this interview; it is nearly impossible to differentiate them from legitimate applicants at this time.

To get the most out of telephone interviews, a company may wish to record them, with the applicant’s permission, of course, and allow the hiring manager or other HR staff to review them. The staff can then prepare preliminary lists of follow-up questions to be asked during subsequent, face-to-face interviews. Seasoned psychopathy researchers are often impressed with the conversational skills of psychopaths when in their presence, only to find during subsequent listening to the tapes that their banter is filled with flowery phrases, inconsistencies, lies, distortions, and bad logic. At least these researchers have the advantage of other collateral information (such as criminal records) about the psychopaths, which the company—at least at this point in the process—does not have.

As a company interviewer, though, one must be careful not to
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place too much credence on subtle discrepancies gleaned during telephone interviews. Despite the ubiquity of telephones, many people are not at all skilled in speaking over them, especially when stress takes over good judgment and smooth conversation, as is the case during a job interview. At the very least, detailed notes about any inconsistencies should be taken by the interviewer and used to address concerns in follow-up interviews.

SCREENING INTERVIEW 2

Candidates who pass the initial phone screen are invited in for face-to-face interviews with key staff. The interviewers often include HR

staff, the hiring manager, and, in many cases, a technical person from the department with the vacancy. The perspective of each is different, but they share the common goal of finding out as much about the candidate as they can in a limited amount of time in order to make an informed hiring decision.

With their experience and expertise in assessing people, the HR

staff is often thought by others to possess the best chance of determining the people skills and fit of the applicant. HR alone, of course, cannot determine these things; it is up to the entire screening team, a concept we will discuss in detail below. Some hiring managers also expect the HR staff to determine the mental health (a generic term, often misused) of the applicant. This is clearly an un-reasonable expectation, and totally out of the realm of HR work.

Short of a psychological assessment, formal evaluations of mental health are not possible by untrained interviewers—and perhaps not relevant to a given job. The reader should keep in mind that psychopathy is not mental illness; it is a personality disorder, and psychopaths are well known for coming across as particularly “sane” to others. They display few, if any, of the idiosyncrasies, foibles, and neuroses that make the rest of us unique.

The hiring manager takes on the bulk of the interviewing task, while the others on the selection team play supporting roles. The hir-Enemy at the Gates

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ing manager must find out many things before making a decision.

Some of the questions and concerns on the mind of the hiring manager include:

• Does this person have the skills I need to get the job done?

• Will he or she fit in with the department or team?

• Can I manage this person?

• Does this person demonstrate honesty, integrity, and a good work ethic?

• What motivates this person?

• Do I like this person, and will he or she get along with others?

• Will he or she focus on tasks and stick to the job until it is done?

• Will this person perform up to the level the company requires for success?

The interview is the primary source of answers to questions such as these and makes it, therefore, a critical event in the selection process. Good candidates have a clear agenda: they want the job, they want to advance their careers, they want to work for a particular company on particular types of projects, and so on. These are all quite legitimate. Psychopathic candidates may also have a hidden agenda: they want to play “head games,” and they want money and power because they feel entitled to it—not in exchange for real work.

They want to talk the interviewer into giving them the job, and they ultimately want to take advantage of the company. The employment interview is the ideal setting for the psychopathic candidate to shine.

Surprisingly, though, many managers make two critical mistakes when approaching the employment interview: not preparing for the interview and not being trained in interviewing techniques.

Both of these mistakes play directly into the hands of a psychopathic candidate by giving him or her too much control of the interviewing process.

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Many managers we have known simply do not prepare the right questions for the task; some do not prepare any at all. To the candidate, the interview is the chance to impress the company with his or her ability to do the job and the motivation to do it well. Good management candidates will have mentally rehearsed their presentation and potential scenarios prior to the interview. They will have read books on interviewing techniques and have ready answers for the most common questions, including the challenging ones, such as

“Tell me your greatest weakness”; “How would you handle it if . . . ,”

and; “If you could do something differently in your career, what would it be?” It is well worth the time and effort for the hiring manager to carefully prepare questions designed to elicit the specific information needed to make the right choice among a slate of candidates, and to force the candidate to go beyond pat or rehearsed responses.

The second mistake some managers make is not receiving training in interviewing techniques. Some interviewers prefer a free-flowing, unstructured approach to the interview, a style that goes against most of what we know about good interviewing techniques.

Without formal training, the interviewer is forced to rely on “gut feel” or personal impressions. While this approach may work for seasoned interviewers with good candidates, it leaves the average interviewer open to manipulation by a psychopathic applicant.

Basic training on how to conduct and manage an employment interview is the least one should do to defend against psychopathic manipulation during employment interviews. While many training programs on interviewing techniques are available, most share a similar format: an opening, initial exploration, detailed questions, providing information about the job and the company, follow-up on concerns, and close.

The purpose of the opening is fairly obvious and dictated by the culture of the country where the interview is taking place. Handshakes, offer of a beverage, inquiry about travel to the interview site, and talk of the weather are common. These icebreakers pave the way for the real work.

During the initial exploration, the interviewer asks general ques-Enemy at the Gates

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tions about the candidate’s background, experience, expertise, and education. The typical start of this line of questioning is to solicit an explanation of the candidate’s career moves, sometimes in chrono-logical order and sometimes in reverse order.

Once this introductory material is reviewed, the interviewer proceeds to ask detailed questions on specific aspects of the applicant’s background that seem to be relevant to the open position. As with any good line of questioning, there are three levels of responses that the trained interviewer is listening for: the overt answer to the question, the impression the candidate is making on the interviewer, and the underlying competencies, motivations, and values the overt answers reflect.

Overt answers address concerns about facts like:

• What did the candidate really do in this job?

• What role did he or she play, supportive or leading?

• How much influence did the candidate exert on the outcomes of projects?

• How did the candidate handle problems that came up?

Impressions include:

• How does this candidate come across?

• How serious is the candidate about his or her career and this job?

• Is he or she likable?

• Is he or she bright?

• Did the candidate prepare for this interview?

• Is the candidate being forthright with information?

Underlying competency information gleaned by a good interviewer includes answers to concerns such as:

• Does this person communicate well in a somewhat stress-ful face-to-face conversation? Does the candidate stay focused on the question asked or ramble along?