CHAPTER 3
WHAT IS THE BASIS OF THE PERSONNEL PROFILING MODEL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF LIE RESEARCH (IALR)?

When recruiting staff a large number of details should be taken into account, from the position’s profile to the analysis of the psychological characteristics of the candidate.

Fortunately, there is a tool that allows to optimize the time without wasting it on communicating with unsuitable candidates. This is a preliminary stage, which includes evaluation, filter, analysis of resumes and questionnaires, both incoming and the ones that you yourself are looking for, for example, on hh.ru, superjob.ru, etc.

In the fourth chapter we will analyze in detail how to act at this stage. But before proceeding to the appropriate section of the book, we will show what our personnel profiling model is based on.

So, the IALR personnel profiling model consists of six points:

1) Operational psychodiagnostics of IALR.

There are quire a few classifications that help typologize a person, from dividing all people into four temperaments to the signs of the zodiac.

We distinguish 8 psycho-types, taking into account the peculiarities of the nervous system and basic emotions. We will talk about this from two points of view: which candidate is effective in a particular psycho-type of a particular position and which risk factors are peculiar to him. Risk factors can be predicted and thus the potential of their occurrence can be reduced. We will also look at the criminal profiles of people to understand what the candidate is capable of within the organization.

It is impossible to repair the whole house using only one hammer, since any classification has its limitations. One classification might not be useful for all tasks, besides sometimes it might not be applied at all. Therefore, we also rely on the human metaprogram profile.

2) Metaprogram profile (MP-profile).

The MP profile is a fairly stable characteristic, but still changing throughout life. It is something that we can develop and «stretch». And in the «stretched» metaprogram profile, we can work in opposite contexts equally productively. Understanding a metaprogram profile gives us many advantages. We start with finding out what is the basis for making decisions of a certain person, what motivates him, how he will interact in a team and with other people. By the end we know which positions are best for appointing the candidate. Besides, knowing the metaprogram profile allows to «measure» risk appetite and the level of loyalty of a person.

3) Projective techniques.

It is such a simple and powerful tool, that it allows to save a lot of time, which is spent on identifying real motives, motivators and personal characteristics. If not to use projective methods, then at the first meeting with the candidate we will hear socially acceptable and socially expected answers. In other words, people will try to look good in your eyes, and for a number of questions will give answers that are not entirely truthful. With the help of projective methods we instigate the person to respond unconsciously, based on the characteristics of his personality and experience. With some methods you are most likely familiar, for example, with the technique of Svetlana Ivanova. In this book we will touch these methods. We have also included a number of questions that are not related to the works of this author.

4) NLP tools.

Of course, we can’t do without NLP! In personnel work we use NLP tools when we set (attitudes) installations; when we examine who the person is and what are his representative systems to perceive the world. Here we also include a pyramid of logical levels, thanks to which we will be able to describe the employee’s loyalty level. Any communication is a manipulation, and in order to get answers to our questions we must act professionally and take responsibility for it.

5) Information collection techniques.

An important component in the personnel profiling model is information collection techniques. We apply these techniques not only in relation to people who are being recruited for a particular position, but also in relation to our potential partners in order to understand who we will work with.

It happens that the position you invite a person for is quite important. The decisions of the person on this position might influence the overall development strategy of the company (for example, in the position of a top manager). To understand what kind of person he is, what dark sides and pitfalls he has, whether he has any contacts with competitors, whether there are court decisions and other unpleasant hidden facts, we need to use additional information gathering tools. We use open information resources, databases, and social networking sites. Using this tool, we might, so to say, play softball «spy games». And before we see the candidate, we already know something about him.

6) Methods of non-instrumental (toolless) lie detection.

Think of the answers that candidates gave on he question «Why did you choose our company?» From this point on, «sugar honey» would begin: «Because your company is the best,» «Because I want to work with professionals,» «Because you are the largest suppliers in the market,» etc. Now imagine what can actually be hidden behind these words and what are this person’s true motives and reasons for employment. «I have to wait a couple of months, and then I will definitely go to another organization, they offer higher salary and tastier food …”, or «Well, it’s near my house». Or the worst case: «It is because I’ve agreed with your competitors that I would be feeding them intel.» During the interview at least 20% (which is the very minimum!) of the information will not be true.

To analyze the answers to a number of important questions (including reasons of dismissal from previous jobs or harmful addictions), tools for assessing the reliability of information are needed.

CHAPTER 4
PRELIMINARY STAGE – RESUME ANALYSIS, QUESTIONNAIRES

Whether you use the services of a recruitment agency or hiring candidates yourself, any way, a candidate for the position fills out a questionnaire. At the stage of selecting such questionnaires or resumes, there are several points for analysis, on which one can say whether to invite this person to an interview or not. Let’s go through the points that are usually included in the questionnaire.

Full name, contacts.

Primary input data, at first glance, do not give anything for profiling a questionnaire. But in fact, sometimes even significant information may be hidden here.

For example, look at the name of the mailbox. The man himself chooses a name for this purpose and shows the peculiarities of his character, convictions and so on. For example, rasist@yandex.ru or seksi-ledi@mail.ru. It is no coincidence that the candidate named the mailbox this way.

Data about the mail might also be needed when we analyze information about the candidate using various information sources.

Once we were looking for a candidate for a managerial position and we would analyze his general managerial experience and areas of activity. One of the candidates’ questionnaire indicated that he has been on the leaders positions since he was 15! It was further stated that until the age of 48 he held only similar positions. The profile was missing a photo, but there was mail registered on mail.ru. We used this information to look at the «leader from birth» and through the social networking site MoiMir we saw the candidate’s questionnaire. It turned out that he was 58 years old. So it means that the information in the resume was changed / distorted / hidden. Naturally, we did not invite this man, who was like the kings of the Middle Ages – rulers from adolescence.

Education

The lack of education, which is supposed to help in mastering the profession, does not mean that the person is not suitable. Right away the «sales-managers with a God-given talent» with only a secondary education come to mind. And vice versa. An appropriate education, though increases the candidate’s chances, is not a hundred percent indicator of his effectiveness in office.

Our colleague Tatyana shared her story about this. She just got a job at the local representative office of a large trading company as a personnel director. The company had strict recruitment requirements. And so Tatiana received a call from a girl who asked her challengingly: «So what, you only take people with higher education?». Tatiana invited her for the interview. The whole biography of the girl was «one big minus»: she had a residence permit, a rented apartment, a 2-year-old daughter, no grandmothers-grandfathers, working experience only at the checkout counter in the store. Secondary trade education. Despite all these, Tatiana really liked the girl, she went to the supervisor to arrange an interview with her (of course, she retold her entire biography). The supervisor made a «cuckoo» sign, but agreed to talk. After talking with this girl the supervisor finally decided to hire her. The company had a trial period of 3 months. This girl had the shortest trial in the company’s history – 3 weeks. And over the next 3 years of her work she would fulfill the plan by 120%. Even the regional directorate was proud of her.

In general, when analyzing one should pay attention to educational institution the candidate graduated from, which faculty he studied, which specialty he mastered, in what city, how long did he study, whether it is a specialized or non-specialized education (whether it is necessary for this very position), and which skills and knowledge it provides.

Family status

Some employers also look at this factor and take into account the fact that a man of 45 years old has not been married and has no children.

It is not uncommon for young girls to seek employment in large company with an officially declared salary and a good social package with only one goal – to work for a while and go on maternity leave. When ordering verification clients often want us to ask the candidate this question: «Are you going to get pregnant in the near future?». Here, of course, we explain that there are things that you cannot plan, and the answer to such a question will be useless.

Working experience and previous jobs

An important point. We are interested in finding out at what places the candidate used to work, and whether they were similar to one another. For example, if a person began working as a laborer, and then he became a shop-worker in the same company, then a shop foreman, and eventually the head of a company, then we can see consistency and procedural character.

The opposite case: the resume shows the frequent change of places, the candidate worked in many companies but not in one did he stay for a long time. What is the matter here? We will list several reasons. First, it can be the meta-program «Differences», when a person does not want to work in one place for a long time, he wants to develop and is longing to go forward. The meta-program «Opportunities» should not be excluded, especially when places of work do not cross over and official duties do not overlap. Besides, a risk factor might be a reason (alcohol, conflicts). If a candidate has changed 3—4 places in 10 years it is not so bad, 2 places are actually excellent. This suggests that a person is stable, appreciates orderliness in his life and is not used to changing places of work so often.

Additionally, consider the spelling in the questionnaire. For example, a person applied for an assistant manager position, but in five lines he made three mistakes. In fact, what does the position of assistant manager imply? Attentiveness, commitment, multitasking, responsibility, nuanced approach. For instance, his responsibility might be ordering tickets, organizing transfers for partners from other cities, monitoring services operation to complete the tasks set by the manager and much more. But if a person wrote a resume and did not even recheck it, then there is a high probability that he will continue to make mistakes in the future. For example, time of the meeting important partners will be wrongly appointed and it will negatively affect the work of the manager and the company as a whole.

Hobby

Hobby is a remarkable thing. Up to this very point in the questionnaire everything is usually structured, a person writes things that he wants to be known. For example, skills, knowledge of languages, etc. Here you can write anything of these, it is impossible to check it just relying on the questionnaire. But the hobby speaks of that part of the personality that the candidate is trying to conceal. What do you think a hobby like collecting might say? If you think about it, this may speak of patience, desire for deeper understanding, or when a person wants to know something – he begins to «dig» and hunt down the topic. This may also speak about diligence and goal orientation. This hobby often indicates that the person is ready to follow procedures and processes.

Once we analyzed a resume for the position of development director, in which the candidate wrote that his hobby was collecting orders, medals, badges, any lapel pins and working with archives to study family history. It is not difficult to guess that we did not invite the candidate to this position, because his hobbies are connected solely with the past.

A versatile multi-faceted person with different interests will suit us for creative professions. Such type of hobby as extreme sports (for example, rodeo, rock climbing, rafting, etc.) speaks about adventurous nature in a way, about risk appetite. It is important to consider what position you are hiring the person for. For positions that require risk (for example, when working with new directions) this hobby is rather a benefit. If we select a candidate for the position of a risk manager, where a person must predict, foresee all negative aspects, such hobby might tell us that a candidate has some undesirable personal traits.

Additional information / portfolio

In the resume candidates also often add additional information about themselves, including various certificates, awards, credentials. It might say that such a person is longing to learning, self-development, he is quite active, able to present himself and his abilities, and most often such people are ambitious. This information will give a clue as to the candidate’s area of interest: whether certificates relate to different fields and areas, or each certificate is a logical continuation of the candidate’s training in one area, which reveals the desire to study the subject deeper. Also, if the candidate has included all this in the resume, it is possible that he wants to show how he will cost the labor market.

Concerning strong qualities, which candidates use to describe themselves, there is an excellent saying of by L.N. Tolstoy «The more the person is satisfied with himself, the less satisfying things can be found in him.» It is difficult to assess yourself. To convey your assessment objectively is not an easy task, too, since everything is relative. If you ask a 19-year-old girl from the village if she considers herself to be goal-oriented, she will answer «Yes» because she graduated from the 9th grade, unlike her friends who dropped out of school in the 7th grade. All of us once achieved a goal, even a small one, but to assert that all people have this strong would be hastily and biased.

And here I want to recall the experiment of Bertram Forer. In 1948 he showed the results of this effect. Forer gave his students a special test in order to analyze their personalities. However, instead of the actual individual characteristic, he gave each student the same text written in a generalized language, which is often used in drawing up a horoscope.

Here is the text that students received:

«You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.

At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.

You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.

Then B. Forer asked each student to evaluate the accuracy of this description according to their personal reality on a scale from zero to five, and surprisingly, the average evaluation was 4.26.

Most surely you also, after reading this text, would agree with a couple or more descriptions. And at the same time certainly you would not deny the fact that all people are different.

This example, among other things, illustrates the fact that people’s opinions about themselves do not always coincide with reality. Therefore, to evaluate what the candidate writes about himself one need to have a certain dose of skepticism, or not to take it into account at all, especially if the information you received from more reliable sources (or other points of the questionnaire) contradicts what the candidate says.

Candidate’s photo

We know many HRs who collect photos that absolutely disagree with resumes. One candidate sends a photo in the «nude» style with a cherry in his mouth, the other one makes photo with a bottle in his hand against a background of unbridled fun. What do these «photo reports» speak about? At least about the attitude to their employment. The analysis should also touch the details of the photo, in what setting and pose the candidate is captured, what he is wearing, what his body language is talking about. Even before the meeting with the candidate, this information will help determine both the basic psychotype and the metaprogram profile.

Cover letter

Based on the study of the text of the cover letter, we can evaluate how convincing the candidate is, how clearly and intelligibly he expresses his thoughts, determine his literacy, the structure of the letter, examine the text for adequacy to the context. One of the HRs had a case when a «cry of the heart» was sent as a cover letter. In the letter the candidate literally begged to employ him.

Preferred contact method

The choice of contact methods sometimes indicates whether the candidate is currently working elsewhere. Correspondingly it might shed light on the habits of behavior (e.i. a candidate hides from the employer that he is looking for another job, thus he might be ready to lie in your organization). For example, the candidate denies that he works in a company, but writes that the preferred contact method is mail and indicates a corporate e-mail.

It can also show how important it is for him to find a job; whether the candidate wants to know about his employment «here and now» or he prefers to get an e-mail and have some time to think which place to choose.