How to Avoid Hiring Liars and Low Performers

Hiring can be one of the most exciting processes because it creates the hope that a new hire will be a high performer. Still, most companies can’t seem to avoid attracting liars and low performers.

Since hiring is one of the most critical processes that impact your company’s success, liars and low performers are the last people you want to see enter your hiring funnel. If you “think” the hiring process is costly, try systematically estimating the cost of mis-hires in both money and time.

Fortunately, the Topgrading process significantly reduces the risk of such expenses and wrongful hires.

Lying in Hiring

Don’t get us wrong, we think it’s normal — and smart — for candidates to put their best foot forward when job hunting. It’s normal for candidates to highlight their accomplishments and downplay mistakes. After all, job hunters want job offers, don’t they?

We’re all humans with defense mechanisms, and, for our own egos, we tend to see things through rose-colored glasses. So, while we might not mean to overexaggerate, sometimes we do.

To slightly stretch the truth is one thing, but flat-out lying is another. You don’t want to hire someone who looks you in the eye and claims, for example, to be a graduate of a university they never attended. They will not only lie to you at the moment but will most likely continue to do so well into their tenure with your company.

Is it too harsh to characterize fudging the truth as lying? You decide. We’ve tracked research on the subject and found the following:

• 57% lied about skills, and 55% embellished responsibilities. (BackgroundChecks.org)
• 86% of the 4,000 HR members surveyed found lies. (SHRM)
• 92% lied on both résumé and LinkedIn profiles when offered a prize of $100 for creating the résumé that best fit the job they wanted. (Stanford University)
• 50% had discrepancies in job history. (EmployeeScreenIQ)
• 43% lied on résumés. (Time magazine)
• 90% admitted to lying on résumé. (HR conference in Hawaii)
• 27% had serious lies in résumés. (HireRight)
• 50%-plus lied in résumés and interview responses. (Freakonomics)
• 53% of résumés and job applications contain falsifications. (GradSchoolHub.com)
• 40% of applicants have at least one serious lie on their résumé. (Topgrading, Inc.)
• 78% of people admit they would lie to get a job. (Wall Street Journal)

As the saying goes, Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

The Topgrading Truth Motivator

How do you motivate applicants to tell the truth? Simple — by using The Topgrading Truth Motivator.

What is The Topgrading Truth Motivator? It is the process of informing all applicants that a final step in hiring is for them, not you, to arrange calls with managers they’ve reported to.

Instead of candidates giving references (including friends), you pick the people you want to talk with. Candidates arrange those calls because the managers they reported to are the most valuable — and it is too difficult for you to get them to talk.

A few months into my first job, I interviewed an executive who hired mostly high performers. I asked what his secret was, and the conversation went like this:

Manager: “Simple. I’m pretty successful at hiring because I get the best verification imaginable — I talk with the candidates’ managers.”

Me: “Huh? How the heck can you do that when companies discourage managers from taking reference calls?”

Manager: “Simple again. I tell the candidates upfront that they will eventually have to ask their bosses to take a reference call. High performers are happy to try, and they almost always succeed in getting their bosses to talk. In 40-plus years, we’re unaware of any bosses getting into trouble for taking a reference call about an A Player that worked for them.”

Fascinated, I asked clients what they thought of this approach, and most said, “Let’s try it.”

It worked, and a more authentic interview process was born. More honesty was brought out in interviews, low performers dropped out on their own, and reductions in screening times and costs were dropped.

The Topgrading Truth Motivator has been a career-changing tool for many managers, contributing to the formation of high-performing teams. Candidates become more open about their strengths and weaknesses, allowing for better-informed hiring decisions and more effective career growth.

In a world where dishonesty in the hiring process is unfortunately common, The Topgrading Truth Motivator stands out as an ethical and fair approach. It encourages openness and honesty, ultimately benefiting both employers and honest job seekers.