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Enemy at the Gates
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SCREENING INTERVIEW 1
Individuals whose résumés seem to be a good fit for the open position
are invited for an interview or series of interviews. Sometimes
the first contact is by phone, an approach that saves the company
considerable time and expense and allows a larger pool of candidates
to be seriously considered. Telephone interviews benefit the applicants
as well, because many more of them get a serious shot at the
job than can be afforded by face-to-face interviewing alone.
The telephone interview is designed to get to know the candidate
on a more personal level and to collect more details about his or her
work experience. Typically, a candidate’s motivations and personal
interest in the job can be explored by asking questions like, “Tell me
more about...” and “What got you interested in applying for this
job?” A savvy candidate can catch glimmers of what the company is
looking for and strategically offer examples of work experience that
respond to their often unspoken concerns; those with good communication
skills can, thereby, advance their candidacy. Psychopaths, of
course, are quite astute at noticing what others need to hear and will
begin their verbal manipulation during this interview; it is nearly impossible
to differentiate them from legitimate applicants at this time.
To get the most out of telephone interviews, a company may
wish to record them, with the applicant’s permission, of course, and
allow the hiring manager or other HR staff to review them. The
staff can then prepare preliminary lists of follow-up questions to be
asked during subsequent, face-to-face interviews. Seasoned psychopathy
researchers are often impressed with the conversational
skills of psychopaths when in their presence, only to find during subsequent
listening to the tapes that their banter is filled with flowery
phrases, inconsistencies, lies, distortions, and bad logic. At least these researchers
have the advantage of other collateral information (such as
criminal records) about the psychopaths, which the company—at
least at this point in the process—does not have.
As a company interviewer, though, one must be careful not to