Interview for Integrity

By Mark Henricks of Entrepreneur.com



Jay Meschke recalls the case well: "We had an unethical CEO candidate who actually used his wife as a reference," says the president of Overland Park, Kansas, search firm EFL Associates, a CBIZ company. The pair had different last names and used an international phone number to confuse matters.

The deception failed when a recruiter called to check references, then later visited with the candidate's wife and recognized her voice from the reference call. "We uncovered it only through sheer luck," Meschke admits.

Luck is great, but you can't count on it. And that's troublesome when scarce jobs and a volatile economy can pressure candidates to embellish and outright lie just to be considered for a position. "This is a rampant problem now," Meschke says. "And it's gotten worse over the years."

Background checks, whether done professionally by an outside service or informally through a scan of search engines, comprise a key part of exposing falsities. But background checks work best when combined with skilled interviewing. And a well-done interview can trip up even an accomplished liar.

Wise interviewers use resumes only as starting points for reading between the lines of a candidate's work history. "One pretty easy thing a lot of people don't do is ask about jobs not listed on resumes," Meschke says. This simple question puts candidates on the spot to either admit or deny leaving out past jobs that may not support the image they want to portray.