At Work: Little lies will catch up with a job seeker
— -- When you're sitting there in an interview with a potential employer -- we'll call him Bob -- Bob is hoping you've got what he wants.
He doesn't like this whole process any more than you do, and the sooner he finds the right person, the better.
Bob also wants to believe everything you tell him because most of us believe that people will not lie to us.
COLUMN: Time to 'fess up on resume fibs
MORE: Andrea Kay's column index
"In our society we operate with the belief that people are innocent until proven guilty," say Philip Houston, Michael Floyd and Susan Carnicero, authors of Spy The Lie. Plus, "most of us feel uncomfortable sitting in judgment of anyone else."
But the truth is that people lie.
They lie a lot, the authors say, pointing to behavioral research that suggests people lie at least 10 times in a 24-hour period. They do it because it's in their best interests. And they are more likely to lie if they believe they can get away with it.
Lying to be competitive in the job market -- whether it's claiming someone you never met gave you a recommendation, taking credit for work you didn't do, listing a degree you don't have or denying a criminal background -- eventually will catch up with you.
First, Bob and other potential employers will verify information you tell them. But even before that, they will be evaluating your words closely, including what you don't say -- especially if they read a book like Spy the Lie.
In the book's chapter about what deception sounds like, the authors point out things that Bob will want to watch for in an interview:
-- Showing an inappropriate level of politeness.
Let's say you respond to a question. Then you suddenly increase the level of niceness by injecting a compliment such as, "That's a great tie, by the way." The compliment is significant, they say.
The idea is "that the more we like someone, the more we're inclined to believe him and to shy away from confrontations. The person is using politeness as a means of promoting his likeability," the authors say.
-- Making referral statements.
This is when a deceptive person responds to a question and refers to having answered the question previously. He or she might say: "I would refer you to my earlier statement when I saidâ?¦" or "As I told the last guy, â?¦"
The idea here is to build credibility through repetition.
-- Using qualifiers.
These potential deceptive indicators are "exclusion qualifiers" that let people "who want to withhold certain information to answer your question truthfully without releasing that information." They'll say things like "basically," "for the most part," "fundamentally," "probably" and "most often."
And some "perception qualifiers" are used to enhance credibility: "frankly," "to be perfectly honest" and "candidly."
-- Going into attack mode.
This is what can happen when a deceptive person feels backed into a corner. Whatever the question was, the deceptive person responds by going on the attack, trying to impeach the interviewer's credibility or competence with questions such as "how long have you been doing this job?"
"What he's trying to do is to get you to back off, to start questioning yourself on whether you're going down the right path," the authors say.
They quote astrophysicist Bernard Haisch who said, "Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by questioning answers."
Will all employers be this savvy in discovering lies? Probably not.
But all they have to do is sense a lie, and your credibility goes down the drain.
Career consultant Andrea Kay is the author of "Life's a Bitch and Then You Change Careers: 9 steps to get out of your funk and on to your future." Click here for an index of At Work columns. Send questions to her at 2692 Madison Road, #133, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208; www.andreakay.com or www.lifesabitchchangecareers.com. E-mail her at andrea@andreakay.com.
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