Winners Never Cheat and Cheaters Never Win

I’m a HUGE St. Louis Cardinals (and baseball) fan.  It struck me with a huge amount of disappointment when the Redbirds announced that they had voided a contract that they signed with a 16 year old from the Caribbean who they had been working to sign for quite some time.

Why would they void a contract after beating out a dozen other teams and offering $3.1mm (a record for the Cardinals in signing an Amateur)?

Because, as it turned out, his Agent lied about the fact that the young man had a degenerative eye disease that was robbing him of his vision.  They hid it in the hopes that he could get signed fast enough to just start playing and put the money in the bank.

Yes, I understand that most business owners and hiring managers aren’t dealing with salary numbers anywhere near the millions BUT, if someone’s been unemployed for a period of time, has a mortgage that’s overdue and has bill collectors calling every day, how honest do you think they’re being during their interviews?

Some things that you should be closely evaluating to be sure that you’re getting as close to the truth out of prospective employees during the evaluation process:

• Do your Job Descriptions give away too much about the job?  In other words, if it was a personal ad, does it explain too much about your likes and dislikes so that someone could “fake it” on a first date?
• Are your interviews structured and planned in advance?  If you’re making up your interview questions on the fly based on the answers you’re getting, are you getting to the meat of what you need to learn about a prospective employee or are you having great discussions about all of their strengths and letting them withhold their weaknesses?
• Are you conducting INTENSE Reference Checks?  I’ve gotten a ton of positive feedback from a blog post from a couple of weeks ago about how to dig in during the Reference Process.  Without really pushing to talk with previous hiring managers, are you getting the truth from candidates or just their half of the story?
• Are you running Credit History Reports on candidates to evaluate if they’re in such dire straights that they are more likely to tell you whatever you want to hear?

People in tough situations will often be pushed to do things that they normally wouldn’t do.  Many times, we’ve seen that this includes bold-faced lies during their interviews and on their resumes.  A prime example: just this past week we had an applicant suggest that she had 10 years of Business to Business Marketing Experience.  She had such a good story that an inexperienced interviewer probably would have ‘bought’ it.  Because the Hire Better Team Member who was interviewing her knew how to dig in further it was discovered that her 10 years were really only 9.  And that B2B experience: working as the Office Manager for a Flower Shop that had a local relationship with 1-800-FLOWERS and a $500/month budget for Google AdWords.

Bottom line: expect the best from people but, especially in this kind of economy, don’t just accept what you’re hearing as the truth.

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, career history, cheating, dishonest, hire better, lies, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, Reference Check, talent acquisition, Topgrading, unemployment, virtual bench