Would you Believe it? Graduates Fake at Employment Interviews!
Well, no, you probably would not when it comes to the prevalence of faking. A study of American graduates recently reported by Julia Levashina and Michael Campion showed that no less than 95% of undergraduate job candidates fake during employment interviews. Although there is some encouragement from the fact that fewer than this engage in faking behaviors that are semantically closer to lying, that still leaves virtually every graduate engaging in Slight Image Creation and Ingratiation.
The researchers looked at 11 facets of faking and found the following:
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64% engage in Constructing - defined as to build stories by combining or arranging work experiences to provide better answers.
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75% engage in Inventing - defined as to cook up better answers, such as claiming work experiences they did not have.
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34% engage in Borrowing - defined as to answer based on the experiences or accomplishments of others.
Perhaps most interesting of all, the researchers found that using probes during a behavioural interview actually afforded an opportunity for graduates to improve their faking. They saw standardized follow up questions as cues signalling that the requested information was important for the interviewer and prompting more detailed answers that encouraged respondents to fake. The least vulnerable form of interview to faking was the interview centred upon past behaviour but without follow-up questions. Situational interviews were more vulnerable.
How can Human Assets Help?
Armed with information such as the content of this study, our consultants design selection procedures that maximize their validity and robustness. Our processes provide checks on the results and our interviews, in particular, are carefully designed to pinpoint instances of mild or extreme faking. We concentrate on eliciting evidence of interviewees demonstrating the indicators of excellence required for the role and always ensure that the evidence offered is specific and potentially verifiable.
To find out more about the Human Assets approach to choosing talent please contact charles.woodruffe@humanassets.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)20 7831 9512.
Reference
Levashina, J. and Campion, M. A. Measuring faking in the employment interview: Development and validation of an interview faking behaviour scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, November 2007, Vol 92 No 6, pp1638-1656.