Nothing but the truth
(Everybody lies redux)
I came across a post about lying in recruitment today, and most of the respondents indicated it’s a dealbreaker and a sign of human awfulness.
Which reminded me of this article, written last year, as a counterpoint to my sister’s then recently published book.
She really liked my suggestion of ‘Nothing but the truth’ as its name, but told me her agent vetoed it on the grounds that negative titles don’t sell. Sounds true, yet maybe she was just protecting my feelings.
Truth is an interesting concept. Can you tell a lie, by only telling truths?
Does having an ideal require that you lie to uphold it?
Is lying morally permissible if it only benefits others, and not yourself?
Anyway, reading it back, it’s quite good, and you might enjoy it too:
At the end of her speech, my sister made a simple request:
“Put your hand in the air if you’ve lied today.”
Only one person didn’t put their hand up – me.
Lying’s not in my nature, except in a couple of specific situations where no harm is caused.
You can believe that or not, up to you.
The earlier part of the speech touched on all those little moments in our lives where we tell a little lie, either to ourselves or someone else.
Sometimes it’s to protect feelings. Sometimes to protect ourselves.
Sometimes it’s to keep up the narrative of how we are perceived because we don’t want to share our secret selves.
It was a great launch for a book on how society doesn’t just put up with lies to function, it may even rely on them.
She interviewed a wide range of experts on lying including spies and toddler scientists, showed how the face can lie, and talked about her amnesia and what it was like to be in the closet.
She didn’t interview me about recruitment, so I’m putting that right today.
Lies are rampant everywhere you look in recruitment.
In a survey last year, 51% of respondents admitted to lying on their CVs.
I expect the true number to be higher, considering some won’t even admit a lie to themselves.
It’s common to extrapolate behaviour from what we experience. One lie may lead to more, and that may be the only reason you need to reject a candidate.
Not all lies are born equal.
Broadly I differentiate them between lies of impact, lies to protect, and lies of inconsequence.
A lie of impact is one which leads to a decision based on that lie.
Here an example would be John Andrewes, who lied about his experience and qualifications to land a top NHS job.
He was jailed for 2 years and required to pay £100k, the remainder of his assets.
Fraud.
Or lying about reasons for departure – they say redundancy, they meant gross misconduct.
Misrepresenting capability and qualifications.
Mispresenting a role to make it more appealing.
£Competitive salary, when you meant lowball to get a deal.
The lies we should find and cull at the earliest opportunity.
A lie to protect can be many things.
I remember an HR candidate early in my career who changed her name twice. It was highly suspicious to me at the time.
“Apunanwu Oluwayo” became “Apunanwu Roberts” became “Judith Roberts”.
This first change suggested a marriage or divorce. The second I couldn’t fathom.
What a liar, 2005 Greg thought.
Of course, now I know better.
It’s likely she changed her name to a British one because she suffered from namism – one report indicates candidates are 60% less likely to receive a callback with a foreign-sounding name.
Despite my ignorance, I gave Judith the benefit of the doubt and invited her to interview.
You can see why blind CVs are a fair measure to prevent this happen, although I wonder if it’s better to treat the illness rather than rely on palliative measures.
How about not disclosing identifiable education for the same reasons?
What about disability and neurodivergence?
If a condition requires an accommodation to fulfil a role, is non-disclosure a lie by omission?
Another could be lying about reasons for departure – they said ‘left to focus on a job search’, they meant they couldn’t put up with a harmful environment any longer.
A lie of protection, which isn’t one of impact, should be clarified but, in my opinion, not penalised without investigation.
The lie above is one of protection – I changed the names to protect the individual, one of the situations in which I will lie deliberately, with good reason.
How about a lie of inconsequence?
By this I mean a lie that doesn’t impact employability, reflect capability or have any bearing on what that person is like to work with.
Examples here might be fudging employment dates to prevent the question “Why were you unemployed for 2 days in 2012?”
Or perhaps they might say People Business Partner on their CV, which they fulfilled functionally, yet had a misrepresentative job title of Operations Manager.
Sometimes what seem to be lies of impact, might be lies of inconsequence:
I once had a candidate withdraw from an interview.
Aladdin said his father had passed away, and he had decided to suspend his job search.
I spoke to the hiring manager, Jaffar, and said “This smacks of lying” principally because of a change in behaviour that didn’t seem related to grief, and the very high mortality rate candidates sometimes experience throughout recruitment.
It was a tough vacancy to fill, so we made a plan. Jaffar would contact him directly a couple of weeks after, to check in and see if he fancied a pint.
We put our suspicion aside, while also considering how he might have perceived his relationship with me.
Long story short Aladdin took the job and was there for eight years. He gave me a lovely recommendation too.
I’m pleased to say his father made a full recovery.
While this appears to be a lie of impact, it’s actually one of inconsequence.
He lied because he didn’t feel safe telling me he was having second thoughts. That’s on me, because it is my job to create a safe space for candidates so that they trust me and tell me inconvenient truths.
It’s not dissimilar to the hilariously high rate of car breakdowns in recruitment.
Have we considered our part in that lie?
These three types of lies are a gross simplification to paint the picture.
Our perception of lying is highly subjective, and there is no one right answer.
I think it’s understandable to feel a lie is a dealbreaker.
For lies of impact, this should be the case.
For other lies though, perhaps a judgment call is better than an assumption. Why did that person lie? Could it even be something we did?
Does that lie really matter?
And if it does matter – how many times have you lied in the same way today?
The next eminently-an-epistole is on technical debt in recruitment, and why we should consider the long-term impact of a short-term compromise.
Regards,
Greg
P.s. if you’re interested in Kathleen’s book, you can read about it here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Superpower-Truth-About-Little-ebook/dp/B09MDWNL44
another solid read from you Greg