Hiring Advice from an Indiana Private Investigator
It’s been said that human communication consists of 93% body language and 7% with words. In this line of work, being able to distinguish between a lie and the truth becomes crucial. The ability to properly read body language can be the difference in hiring an honest person or a stone-cold crook. If you do a good job, your company may be paying big bonuses to your employees. But if you fail, the company may be calling the bank to increase the size of your loan to cover the losses. It is literally the difference between success and failure.
Many small companies hire employees simply by reviewing the candidate’s resume and conducting the interview. The background check is either deemed unnecessary or too cost preventive. This means if you are the person leading this interview, you need to be on your game and understand how to gauge someone and understand body language at this meeting. Most interviewers are not knowledgeable in the art of truth telling and are unable to separate the lies from the truth. I would like to provide a few simple tips to those interviewers who are the last line of defense between a company’s profit and loss.
First, don’t underestimate the resume. This document provides a wealth of information about your candidate. It’s important to understand how to leverage information they provide and use it for your advantage. For instance, prior to the interview, you are reviewing Johnny’s resume and notice a 6 month break of employment. Johnny doesn’t provide any reason for this gap on his resume. This makes for a great opportunity for an in-depth question at the interview.
Body language is vital when developing a theory on the truthfulness of your candidate. While maintaining eye contact with Johnny you ask him about the gap of employment and while he keeps talking smoothly, he immediately breaks eye contact. His verbal cues indicated no problem, but his body language is an indicator of dishonesty. It doesn’t absolutely mean he’s a liar, but it is a red flag that you should not dismiss. Remember, not one event defines if someone is dishonest, but the totality. If Johnny also touches his face or body at the same time he breaks eye contact, this is another deceitful sign that makes the evidence against his honesty weightier. And of course his actual response is crucial as well. If Johnny answers the question in a roundabout manner, this is also a red-flag and indicative of a dishonest candidate.
While this barely scratches the surface of reading an interview candidate, I hope these few tips can help you during the interview process or entice you to learn more. I would be remiss not to recommend a background check for all of your candidates. Your company’s profits are too important not to take the hiring process seriously.
