According to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) about 30 percent of all job applicants make material misrepresentations. Especially in today’s business climate, employers may find this prospect an increasing or growing concern.
Employers want to find the best people to fill their positions. Finding the best person for the job is an important goal for human resource (HR) professionals.
Therefore, practically speaking, the HR professional’s commitment is more to the employer than to the applicant. Having said this, it is only common sense to assume that applicants, when put in a testing situation, will put their best foot forward. In other words, in certain situations, testers can expect attempts by some applicants to “fool” the evaluator, either deliberately or unconsciously.
In the scientific-testing community, we have access to considerable literature covering response distortion or “self-serving misrepresentation.”
Generally, when the testing goals are conflicting, we can expect to see distortions by some test-takers. For example, in a forensic situation, the evaluator’s goal and the defendant’s goal are very different. The evaluator’s goal is to get an accurate assessment of this person, who possibly behaved badly or unlawfully. The defendant’s goal is pure self-protection. So, you’re bound to get distortion.
In a workplace setting, the difference between the goals is not so extreme. However, there is a significant likelihood of distortion because the applicant’s goal is to get the job.
Sifting Through the Evidence
Based on my experience with employers and human resource professionals, there is a common pitfall to watch out for: Employment interviewers sometimes overestimate their ability to detect distortions made by applicants.
Employment interviewers see mastering this skill as part of their job. They’ve learned how to do this intuitively; they’re proud of their abilities and they often have their favorite “clues.” For example, the interviewer may note that applicants are scratching their ears, or smiling too much, or crossing their legs. Some interviewers have long lists of behaviors to watch out for.
Now these indicators have been studied in length by research psychologists, and as it turns out, there’s almost nothing on these long lists of “cherished finds of lies” that is valid. Personnel directors and interviewers often find these research findings difficult to accept.
Realistically, people who lie well have it all over us, and some are able to get away with it all the time: For example, from some Wall Street money managers all the way down to the proverbial used-car salesman.
In the world of testing and evaluating, there is no one-size-fits-all model for detecting misrepresentation. In order to develop ways of doing so, experts study and compare behaviors of people in specific situations.
For instance, when we [clinical psychologists] are in a clinical situation and someone might be lying about the presence of mental illness: We refer back to research studies that are specifically about people who lie about their mental illness. Or, for people who claim, in a legal case, that they are suffering from extreme back pain: We consult research about people who were merely pretending to have back pain, as compared with the characteristics of people who actually did have back pain. This approach can produce valid procedures for detecting lying; however, it hasn’t been used much in personnel-selection situations.
In my next Insight, I will review steps an employer can take to diminish the effects of assessment misrepresentation by potential employees.