Plan de Desarrollo y Ordenamiento Territorial Provincia de Santa

The initial challenge for any psychopath trying to join a company is, of course, to be hired. Like psychopaths who easily enter people’s personal lives, corporate psychopaths are able to join organizations more easily than one might expect. This is because the standard tech- niques used to screen out underqualified individuals are well known and little match for the psychopath’s lying and manipulative skills.

The typical selection process involves reviewing the résumés of job candidates for the knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes needed to do a good job. On the surface, the process seems quite straightforward, but it involves a lot of planning and effort and is not foolproof. For midlevel and lower-level jobs, lists of requirements

can be gleaned by watching current employees who exhibit outstand- ing performance records. However, when the job is new and there are no incumbents, supervisors and human resources professionals create the lists based on research from other, similar companies. Once there is a clear sense of what is wanted in the job applicant, then each can- didate can be evaluated through detailed probing and questioning by interviewers.

This process is especially effective for technical jobs or those that can be quantified such as those found in research and development. But as one moves up the corporate ladder into jobs with greater scope and less clear responsibilities, the task becomes more difficult. “Strategic planning,” “critical thinking,” “freedom to act,” “leader- ship,” and other variables must be added to the list—and these are much more difficult to quantify. This makes selecting the most qual- ified job candidate difficult, and “gut feel” or “chemistry” begins to take on more of a role in decision making about who is the best can- didate for the job. This is most evident during face-to-face interview- ing, exactly the place where the psychopath shines. The less clearly defined—or higher level—the job, the easier it is for a psychopath to be hired.

It is common knowledge among executive recruiters that 15 per- cent or more of the résumés they receive contain distortions or out- right lies. Psychopaths, whose personalities are defined by chronic lying, among other things, are quite adept at creating written documentation—résumés, letters of recommendation, citations, and awards—out of whole cloth. They can fabricate a work history custom-tailored to the job requirements, and back it up with phony references, job samples, and appropriate jargon.

Psychopaths have an advantage in person as well as on paper. They can talk a good game during the interview, coming across as smooth, talented, bright, sensitive, self-confident, and assertive. Their storytelling abilities reinforce their résumé “data,” and the whole package they present can be quite compelling. Unfortunately, if hiring decisions are based on easily faked résumés and unstruc-

tured interviews by untrained interviewers—where expertise is evalu- ated based on the ability to convince the interviewer you know what you’re talking about—the company runs the risk of hiring someone who is a fraud.

A further complicating factor is that the hiring process has many objectives beyond merely adding new employees or replacing those who have left. It is very common, especially in rapidly growing com- panies, to hire people based primarily on perceptions of their manage- ment potential or future contributions to the company. That is, some people are hired because they might fit the requirements for the next job up or beyond, not necessarily for the one for which they origi- nally applied. As noted above, higher-level jobs tend to be more broadly defined, and specific technical skills and abilities are not as relevant or critical to assess. Unfortunately, it is easy for the unsus- pecting interviewer to believe that a psychopathic candidate, because of his or her convincing communications style, may have leadership potential beyond the technical knowledge, skills, and abilities listed on the résumé. A clever psychopath can present such a well-rounded picture of a perfect job candidate that even seasoned interviewers can be caught up in the excitement of convincing the individual to join the company.

The role of charm in persuading the interviewer that one pos- sesses the characteristics most often sought in new employees can- not be overstated. When we question managers about the traits they look for in high-level employees, they often state they want individ- uals who are bright, conscientious, honest, and socially skilled. Un- fortunately, these same traits were ascribed to the corporate psychopaths we studied by those who liked and supported them. In- terestingly, these are also the characteristics victims report seeing in con men and women, before they realized that they had been scammed or deceived.

Much of an organization’s success or failure depends on its hu- man assets: what knowledge, skills, and attitudes they bring to their work; how well they understand and are understood by the company;

and how well they get along with each other. The selection process is very important to the ultimate success of the company, but it is not always easy to find individuals who are a good match for the com- pany and its objectives. Likewise, it is not easy to identify individuals who will grow and prosper with the company over time, as opposed to those who enter bearing a different, more selfish agenda. Personal- ity is an important factor in employee selection, but some personali- ties can be quite deceptive and extremely persuasive.