Are you a damned liar too?

This post is part of the blogswap. Amitai Givertz (a.k.a. Recruitomatic) writes about lying in the recruiting process

Last Wednesday afternoon, a recruiter I know was suggesting that it is terribly wrong to be deceitful as part of the process of sourcing names and poaching talent. She wagged her finger at me and said, “You scallywag! Suggesting that recruiting and names sourcing is like sales and prospecting is true, but only up to the point that a recruiter would never lie.” Being a salesman before lying my way into the recruiting profession I thought to myself, “You moron”, but in the interests of polite conversation I said, “Well, I guess you’re right, Mavis.”

This recruiter then proceeded to inform me that the whole business of recruiting has become corrupt. Resumes aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on – full of lies, half-truths and misrepresentations. Hiring managers? They are brazen liars too, especially sales managers and particularly those in advertising and media. To illustrate the point about hiring managers, she cited several instances where she was told that a strong candidate didn’t cut the mustard when clearly, if the manager had taken a moment to read the (heavily censored) resume, an interview – a hire even – would most certainly have been the result. No doubt about it.

Now, I cannot say whether it is right or wrong to lie but I can tell you that The Good Book – as far as I know – makes no mention of lying being a damnable offense. I notice toward the end of the Ten Commandments, almost as an afterthought perhaps, it says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”, but this is a highly specialized form of lying and is only occasionally encountered during reference checking and exit interviews. So, this rarely applies to me anyway. I’m in the clear.

So let’s see if you and I can have an honest conversation about lying and the role it plays at most every level of recruiting. But before we do – and I confess it here – I am an accomplished liar. I lie pretty much every day, sometimes casually, sometimes deliberately and sometimes through my peroxide-whitened plug-in teeth. I have developed a pretty good knack for looking someone in the eye and telling them real whoppers, even to the point of making the story so outrageous they’re bound to think, “Wow! That’s kind of hard to believe,” but they go ahead and believe it anyway. Ask anyone who’s met me, I’m so plausible in person. I am an accomplished liar, that’s true. And I suspect you are one too, so good perhaps that you fall into the category of the “unconscious competent” maybe? I guess I should explain myself before you start getting all unbalanced and permanently boycott this otherwise honest and modestly monetized blog.

If you will, listen in on this sales interview:

Recruitomatic: “So, Rizzo, tell me: under what circumstances would you lie to a client?”

Rizzo: “Never. I would never lie to anyone.”

Recruitomatic: “Not even to a loved one.”

Rizzo: “To a loved one? No, never to a loved one.”

Recruitomatic: “Interesting, Rizzo, interesting. Confucius said: ’It is better to tell a lie and create harmony in the world in the world than to tell the truth and create discord‘. Would you agree or disagree?”

Rizzo: “No, I totally disagree. I don’t tell lies. Never have. Never will.”

Recruitomatic: “Good. That’s what I like to hear. Rizzo, tell me, do you have children?”

Rizzo (beaming): “Sure a little girl – she’s four. My wife and I are expecting a baby boy in a couple of months. We’re very, very excited!”

Recruitomatic: “Lovely, lovely. Rizzo, can you think of the most embarrassing thing your daughter has ever asked you? I mean like, ‘Wow, where did that come from?’ ”

Rizzo (reflecting affectionately): “Well, actually yes. She, er, asked me how the baby got in Mommy’s tummy.”

Recruitomatic: “It’s a womb, Rizzo. But, anyway, you said…”

Rizzo (loosening his tie): Well, I told her to ask Mommy. I couldn’t tell her, you know, well, er, you know. How are you going to tell your little four-year-old-sweetie-pie, you know, you…you know, did that to her mommy, and all. You know, I mean, er…Geez! Are all of your interviews like this? I thought this was selling advertising!”

Recruitomatic: “Kids! They’re so far advanced these days, aren’t they?”

Rizzo (bemused): “Right.”

Recruitomatic: “Santa Clause? Tooth Fairy?”

Rizzo: “Huh?”

Recruitomatic: “Santa Clause? Tooth Fairy? Do they exist, Daddy?”

Rizzo: “Well, er, she’s my princess, what am I going to say? I wouldn’t burst my baby’s bubble like that.”

Recruitomatic: “So, now we have established that you might, indeed, lie to your loved ones, so under what circumstances would you lie to a client?”

Rizzo: “Mr. Recruitomatic, sir. I don’t get it! Letting her believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, you know, not spoiling it for her, that’s not really lying is it?”

Recruitomatic: “Do Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy exist? Yes or no? Okay, well, let’s move on-“(lying of course) “I have 4:00 PM conference call that I simply can’t be late for. Now, what are your salary requirements?”

Now, you can either take my word for it, or go to the research, but most child psychologists would agree that by the age of four, the majority of well-adjusted children have developed the innate ability to lie – lie through their milky-little teeth. Little boys lie to cover up their transgressions. Little girls lie to get their own way. Our adorable and lovable, genetically superior kiddy-winks can’t help lying because it comes to them so easily. In fact, the experts will tell you that lying is a developmental milestone for decent folk because it is only through deception and lying that a child can enter the space of free moral choice and moral responsibility. In other words, develop the potential to become exceptionally good recruiters.

My point? That unless we recognize that lying is a normal – albeit tricky – communication strategy, as professionals committed to the highest possible standards, we cannot begin to control it – for better or worse, we can’t! Recruiters do it, candidates do it, hiring managers do it, too. Marketers do it, salespeople do it, mommies do it, daddies do it. Hell, even American President’s do it, right? The funny thing is, the first step to becoming a “brutally” honest person, transcending the need to lie to get what you want, is getting over the biggest lie of all – the denial that you might just do it every now and then too.

So, take your pick: harmony or discord, truth or lie. I for one couldn’t look myself in the mirror knowing I had given a hiring manager a resume – at best an exaggeration of the truth – with the post-it note: “Check this dude out. He looks like the real McCoy.” I’d rather say, when he asks me how I got the names I just sourced for him, “Don’t ask.” Not because I had to lie to get them – truly I didn’t – but because if I told him the truth as to how I did get them, he’d never believe it could be done. I’m just that good. Honestly, I am.

© 2006 Amitai Givertz