Liar, Liar, Résumé on Fire
Have you ever fibbed on a job application? Do you pray prospective employers will never find out about that time you knocked over a 7- Eleven?
If so, watch out: Industrial psychologists are borrowing techniques from criminal profilers to weed out liars and other undesirables during the hiring process.
Researchers at the Florida Institute of Technology looked at the background checks and personality test results of 2,500 workers who applied for assembly-line jobs at a large auto manufacturer.
They wanted to find out whether there's a cheaper, easier way than background checks to identify the criminally inclined during the hiring process.
The answer, at least according to their preliminary results, is yes. Analyzing the answers to certain questions on a personality test can usually predict who will fail a background check.
"We found people with low self-control and impulsivity problems would be more likely to fail a background check," says researcher Joshua Isaacson, a doctoral student in organizational psychology.
Mr. Isaacson presented the findings in a paper, "Liar, Liar: Examining Background Checks and Applicants Who Fail Them," at a conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology this month.
The personality test that applicants took included agree/disagree statements such as "I am often told I do wild and somewhat unsafe things," "I tend to start tasks right away without giving them much thought," and "Many of my decisions are made at the very last minute." Researchers used studies of criminal behaviour to determine which questions, and answers, indicate a so-called "deviant applicant."
Those who "failed" the personality test by scoring high on measures of risk-taking, impulsivity and aversion to mental tasks also failed background checks 70 per cent of the time.
The remaining 30 per cent, who failed the personality test but passed the background check, may have just been unlucky, Mr. Isaacson says. They may have tried to pick the "right" answers on the personality quiz but chose poorly. (Perhaps they thought the employer was looking for people who could make rapid-fire decisions.)
Or maybe, Mr. Isaacson says, that 30 per cent represents people who have criminal tendencies, or have committed crimes in the past, but simply haven't been caught yet.
"While we may not always catch them with their hand in the cookie jar," the study says, "it may be prudent to take a closer look if we see cookie crumbs on their shirt."
The personality test isn't perfect. As Mr. Isaacson notes, it's "very fake-able." Most of us can guess the right response when potential employers ask questions such as "Do you do wild and unsafe things without much forethought?"
But even unsophisticated tools can help businesses wade through applications. In the past, personality tests have focused on identifying positive traits rather than screening out potential deviants. Now that the U.S. economy is tanking, the risk of a bad apple weighs more heavily when they're hiring so few workers.
"With the way the economy is right now, you've got less people you can hire, so you really want to hire good people," Mr. Isaacson says.
Screening is a big business. An estimated 13 per cent of the U.S. economy is lost because of "adverse effects of hiring problematic employees," the study says, such as employee theft, embezzlement, violence and absenteeism. If the same was true in Canada, the annual cost would be $202.5-billion.
A basic background check costs an average of $108.80 (U.S.) for each applicant, according to the study, and more in-depth checks can add up to $2,500 or more. So companies are eager to find cheaper ways to predict whether job applicants have criminal minds.
Personality tests shouldn't replace background checks, Mr. Isaacson says, but he believes companies may use them as a prescreening tool.
Rebecca Dube
Globe and Mail - April 21, 2008