Each employer wants to find a reliable candidate for the position. All business owners aim at maintaining a stable, friendly atmosphere in their employees. But statistics data is very disappointing: 78% of job seekers lie during an interview. It is obvious that the candidate will demonstrate his best qualities and hide his shortcomings and weaknesses. So how to identify the behavior of a candidate that could pose a threat to business? Unfortunately, there is no unified strategy for recognizing the right employee, and each recruitment specialist focuses on their skills and work experience. But several secrets and techniques allow to avoid dubious candidates.
What Candidate is Considered Unreliable?
Usually, employers know what qualities they do not want to see in potential employees. The list of these characteristics can be long and diverse. Each company has its policy and culture of interactions with the customers. So the candidate should ideally match this atmosphere. But there are some features and conditions which will not contribute to any team. The alarming moments are the following:
- The candidate has mental disorders that occur periodically.
- The candidate has a tendency to lie or steal.
- The candidate has addictions (alcohol, drugs).
- The values of the candidate are very different from the values of the company.
Besides, if the candidate is considered for the position of manager, the risk factors are:
- Too high motivation for individual achievements, inadequate ambitiousness, and arrogance, the desire for individual self-affirmation, and suppression of subordinates.
- Overexpressed and unreasonable risk in making professional and managerial decisions.
- Self-doubt, high anxiety, and fears, too high protection against failures, conservatism.
This is not the whole list of vulnerabilities, there may be other specific things that need to be clarified before signing a contract. So to identify possible weaknesses of the candidate, sometimes a recruiter needs to create a special list of questions for an interview.
The Best Ways to Recognize a Wrong Candidate
- Never fully rely on the resume of the applicant. The provided document does not always reflect the real situation. The accompanying recommendations may have nothing to do with reality. The resume should help the recruiter to build a conversation during the interview to confirm or refute the given data. Avoid candidates with too lengthy resumes and those who had too many places of work in the past.
- Offer a candidate to pass a test. The testing approach helps quickly identify mental abilities, basic knowledge in the profession, and candidate literacy. Modern HR software can develop a test, taking into account certain features required for the job. For example, a lawyer will have to answer questions on pretrial practice and logic, and sales managers have to be well-versed in math.
- Provocative questions. The aim is to create a stressful situation for the candidate and study his basic stress reactions. The interviewer may indelicately doubt any quality of the candidate: age, education, gender. But do not forget that some questions are legally forbidden and considered discriminatory.
- Analysis of non-verbal behavior. Carefully monitor the behavior of the candidate. Observe unexpected, spontaneous changes in posture, redness, blanching, fussiness, or pauses before replying. Note all contradictions in the candidate’s statements and vague answers. Identify the white spots in the candidate’s stories and formulate additional questions directed precisely to these points.
Hiring is a difficult process. If it were simple, employers would not have to fire anyone. It is not realistic to identify a good candidate by simply scrolling through a stack of resumes. Only a skillful interview can provide all the answers. The correctly built conversation enables an employer to predict how the candidate will behave and determine his best personal qualities. And the above tips will help save time and energy on the selection of truly valuable and worthy employees. Remember that the company is just as strong as its weakest employee is.
Eliza Medley is an experienced tutor, educator, and psychologist. Eliza is fond of blogging, motivation articles, and education tips. Follow @Eliza_Medley on Twitter.
Hiring employees stock photo by iJeab/Shutterstock
