employment screening and liars at interviews

An article on NPR, ”Spotting Lies: Listen, Don’t Look,” confirms what ESR has been advising employers for some time: people are not nearly as good a they think they are at detecting liars.  Even highly trained interviewers can make mistakes. See:   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111809280 

This article underscores again that employers are at a big disadvantage if they are relying on job interviews to avid bad hiring decisions.   Good applicants that are nervous may come off poorly at an employment interview while practiced liars can look you in the eye and you would never know it.  This is yet another  reason that when it comes to employment decisions, employers need objective and verifiable criteria.  This gives new meaning to, “Trust but verify.”

For more information, see the  following ESR post all about why employers cannot rely on job interviews to detect liars, found at:

http://www.esrcheck.com/wordpress/613/how-to-tell-if-someone-is-lying-at-an-interview-hint-it-helps-to-have-a-coin-handy-2