In the competitiveness of hiring others, interviewers proceed
like the Greek philosopher, Diogenes. In lieu of finding the honest employee,
today’s interviewers are often charged with spotting liars, con artists and employment
frauds. There is, however, another group of jobseekers. This group often goes
unnoticed, because they portray themselves as “victims.”
Obviously, employers
want to avoid pathological liars and frauds, but victims are supposed to fall
under a different category. The
interviewer has to know what telltale and engrained behaviors to look for in
spotting these pseudo-victims.
Chronic pseudo-victim
jobseekers qualify as obsessive-compulsive behavior. The individual acquires “victim”
status once the individual resorts of blaming others for practically everything
negative. In other words, these type of victims avoid taking responsibility: Thereby
shifting the focus toward others—presumably beyond their control.
The drawback in
hiring pseudo-victim employees is that their refusal to accept their mistakes
are a sure-fire guarantee they will continue to shift accountability. After
all, in their eyes, they are doing nothing wrong, and therefore, there is no
behavior to change.
No one is born
with this condition. This behavior is developed early in life. It is usually copied
behavior from a parent, caregiver or other role model. As a child, the
individual was exposed to the behavior and it became reinforced by mimicking the
role model. The victim status often goes unnoticed unless the interviewer specifically
probes for it.
Job
interviewers will have a preset list of questions they ask all jobseekers. One of
the best technique involves probing for negative information with a beguiling smile.
Some interviewers will confess terrible admissions just to lessen tension. The
interviewer balances both positive and negative inquiries to avoid overtly alerting
the job candidate to the technique being applied.
To identify
those who claim “victims” status, the interviewer only scores responses to the negative
probing questions, and ignores the well-rehearsed positive responses. While
this may appear counter intuitive, those with shift-the-blame mentality quickly
emerge.
Invariably, the
pseudo-victims will consistently shift negative circumstances to others. It is
hard, if not nigh impossible for the job candidate to avoid this behavior, since
it has been engrained since childhood. By age 30, it becomes part of the
individual’s psychological makeup.
Naturally,
those who accept responsibility for their mistakes are scored favorably, while
those who avoid taking responsibility steadily rack up negative points. It
takes less than a half dozen negative-probing questions before the skilled
interviewer has the candidate properly identified.
Avoiding hiring
mistakes is not an easy task. Conducting thorough background checks is the quick-fix
method for catching frauds and liars, but it is not a bulletproof technique for
those claiming victim status. Many pseudo-victim candidates slip through the
cracks due to rushed interviewing techniques. For this reason, many employers
use a sequence of interviews to gauge and evaluate candidates seeking critical and
high profile positions.
This multistage
approach should include at least one psychoanalyst or behavioral specialist
experienced in catching phonies, interviewing frauds and pseudo-victims.
Unfortunately, too many employers proceed on gut feelings and decent credit
scores to identify their candidates.
While the Greek
philosopher, Diogenes, died more than 2,500 years ago, some things do not
change much. In this regard, the quest to find honest job candidates continues.
Copyrighted © 2015 by Robert James