Achi news desk-
Call it the prickly senses—a sense that something, or someone, is dangerous or dangerous—or “professionally ingrained cynicism;” When someone doesn’t feel right, they just don’t “feel right”.
When you’ve been recruiting for as long as I have, you develop an innate sense of when a candidate is exaggerating or outright lying.
Consider the following scenarios as a hiring manager:
1. A candidate claims to be an advanced CPA. You ask them for their opinion on how blockchain might impact the corporate accounting function and related staffing. They look at you like you have three heads.
2. A candidate’s cover letter promoting himself as a lead-generating digital marketer. However, when you google them, you learn that they only have a few hundred X/Twitter followers, haven’t posted on LinkedIn in months, barely have an Instagram presence, and aren’t on TikTok.
An experienced hiring manager will go through the candidate’s digital footprint to determine if they are worthy of an interview. If deemed as such, they’ll ask probing questions about their opinion or a “tell me when you are” story to uncover candidates who aren’t who they claim to be, such as a CPA who isn’t progressive or a digital marketer who doesn’t practice what they preach.
I’ve interviewed enough candidates to conclude that many have an overinflated sense of their skills and value to employers. “I have advanced Excel skills” is often incorrect when giving a test to assess Excel skills. “I speak fluent French” often becomes a doubt when I conduct the interview in French.
Fake applicants—applicants who grossly exaggerate their qualifications—are becoming more and more common, prompting employers to scrutinize a candidate’s background more thoroughly than ever before.
Your verbal responses and evidence of ability must be aligned.
Today, the recruitment process of many, but not all, employers presents job seekers with a catch-22. In today’s job market, employers are looking for the “perfect candidate”. A unicorn search makes lies more attractive than truths. Consider how many people are buying
into get-rich-quick schemes. People tend to believe someone if they can believe that they can serve their own self-interests, such as making them rich.
Lies and exaggerations are candidates’ unethical attempts to tell hiring managers what they believe they want to hear, hoping to convince them they’re the unicorn candidate, hence why my spidery senses tingle when a candidate is over-polished. The saying “too good to be true” is one I live by. I can tell when a candidate is talking straight to me or repeating phrases some self-proclaimed career expert said would impress an interviewer. Having hired my share of Jekyll and Hydes, all hard lessons, I want to avoid a candidate who, once hired, is unrecognizable from the person they were during the hiring process.
In addition to being overly polished, my spider senses tingle when a candidate is:
1. Does not give me simple and concrete answers.
Dodging my questions or not giving straight answers is evasive, a major red flag. A candidate who is evasive annoys me, sometimes to the point of ending an interview early. Besides being aggravating, evasion makes me feel like the candidate is hiding something or is reluctant to admit they don’t know the answer.
During an interview, you must communicate clearly, directly, and above all, honestly.
2. Not managing their emotions.
For many candidates, their emotions or being easily triggered (read: offended) are their own worst enemies. During an interview, if a candidate can’t control their emotions or keep their cool, including irritability, an indication of an inability to handle stressful situations, I wonder how they’ll handle an angry customer yelling.
An interview is not the place to bring up your financial and personal struggles. Instead of trying and hoping to make your interviewer feel sorry for you, focus on using examples and numbers to demonstrate why you’re a great employee.
3. Unable to convincingly explain (keyword) why they are looking to leave their job.
If you are currently employed, your interviewer will ask, “Why are you looking to leave your job?” The prickly senses go off if a candidate’s answer doesn’t feel right.
As someone who changed jobs more than anyone else, when asked why I was looking to leave, I gave answers along the lines of:
· Reorganization of the company or downward trend in the industry.
· Shorten my trip.
These are reasons everyone can relate to. When a candidate says, “I’m looking for more responsibility and career growth,” I ask myself, why isn’t their current employer giving them more responsibility? Why are they not promoted?
4. It is not possible to explain changes at work.
As I mentioned, I changed jobs often. Changing jobs to achieve career goals is often necessary, like when I wanted to experience work overseas. However, the changes in your work should make sense. They should support an end goal. It is your responsibility to connect the dots and create a comprehensive career story in your resume, LinkedIn profile, and certainly during an interview. A candidate without a compelling career story makes my prickly senses tingle. I’m looking for candidates who are looking for a job that will contribute to their career story, as opposed to wanting a paycheck.
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Nick Kosovan, a long-time veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “no-sweet” job-hunting advice. You can send Nick your questions at [email protected].
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