Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (30 page)

A police video showed Homolka walking through the house in which two murders had been committed. She matter-of-Enemy at the Gates

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factly asked a detective if she could have the rug on which one of the young girls had been dismembered. “My sister wants it,”

she explained. In another room she casually asked the detective if “the furniture had been damaged as a result of their investigation.”

Bernardo and Homolka also videotaped the drugging and rape of
Homolka’s younger sister
, Tammy, who died as a direct result of their actions. At her funeral, Bernardo placed a gold ring on a chain around Tammy’s neck, and Homolka slipped a wedding invitation into the casket.

Later, in a letter to a friend, Homolka complained that her parents were more concerned about Tammy’s death than about her forthcoming wedding to Bernardo. “Fuck my parents. . . . My father doesn’t even want us to have a wedding anymore. Screw that. We’re having a good time. If my father wants to sit at home and be miserable, he’s welcome to. He’s wallowing in his own misery and fucking me.”

Homolka is now out of prison, still portraying
herself
as the victim—but now of the criminal justice system.

Exaggerated or inappropriate displays of emotion commonly expressed by psychopaths during an interview might include indigna-tion or rage. Exhibiting these emotions during an employment interview, of course, would raise questions about the candidate’s emotional control and judgment regardless of the reason—

psychological or otherwise. Some display of emotion is normal and to be expected during these expositions, as, for example, when describing passion for one’s work, disappointment over a failed project, or termination of a close coworker. Sometimes the absence of an emotional component to an answer may raise questions. The key is to look for emotions appropriate to the story being told, and to be sensitive to how realistic (as opposed to superficial) these emotional expressions appear. This is the one time when “gut feel” and the interviewer’s “emotional antenna” have a valuable place in the interviewing process.

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The Emotional Disconnect

We have described the “emotional disconnect” in psychopaths as an inability to experience or express normal feelings concerning the effects their actions have had on other people (p.

226). Some of the most dramatic examples come from those who have killed others.

Six weeks after receiving parole for robbery and murder, Jack Abbott (see p. 54) killed a waiter who was a part-time actor. Abbott wondered what all the fuss was about: “There was no pain, it was a clean wound. He had no future as an actor—chances are he would have gone into another line of work.”

The Green River killer, Gary Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to the sexual murders of forty-eight women. In one of the interviews with law enforcement, he enters the room, sits down, looks up, and points out that the camera is not directly on him. The camera is moved and he proceeds to describe what he had for breakfast and how he had slept the previous night. Later, he talks about his horrific crimes in the same emotionally flat manner he had used when describing his breakfast.

ta k e n o t e s

It is easier to recall impressions and feelings about the candidate than specific facts, so it is a good idea to make detailed notes during the interview and write them on the résumé itself or on the list of questions provided by human resources. These notes should be clear enough that others reading the document can decipher them.

It is also useful to review these notes during the interview to help formulate follow-up questions. Simply telling the candidate that you need a moment to review your notes is a reasonable request and is often welcomed by a candidate, as it allows him or her to take a break.

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d o n o t d e c i d e a l o n e

A well-structured hiring process will include a meeting of interviewers—a selection committee—to discuss the qualifications and relative merits of the candidates. This is good practice because different interviewers see different strengths and weaknesses in any single candidate, and these should be compared and discussed. It is invaluable in the case of screening out a potential psychopath. Recall that psychopaths attempt to build private one-on-one relationships with those who have utility to them. By definition, this would include all interviewers and decision makers involved in the hiring process.

As informal students of human psychology, psychopaths may easily ascertain the specific psychological needs and wants of each interviewer and then customize their approach to best advantage. On the surface, each interviewer will come away with a positive impression, and, to the degree that decision making relies on this good feeling, they will all agree that the psychopath is the ideal candidate, almost too good to be true.

By increasing the number and varying the types of interviewers beyond the human resource professional and hiring manager, the chances of finding discrepancies that lie behind the “ideal employee” façade increase. Expanding the interview schedule with a technical expert, a future peer or subordinate, the current job holder (if still on staff), a member of upper management, and even the department staff assistant can provide different perspectives that might uncover important information. We also know that psychopaths treat individuals differently depending on their perceived status. Psychopathic responses to perceived “lower-status” interviewers may include condescension, flirting, disparaging side comments, and displays of entitlement, among other things. “High-status” interviewers may provoke discussion of overly ambitious career aspirations and expectations, bravado and deceitful boasting, and even the disparagement of another “lower-status” interviewer. By getting all
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of the interviewers in a room together for a discussion of the candidates, the selection committee can flush out these discrepancies. By reviewing the candidate’s interview results together, critical inconsistencies, and possibly deceitful claims, can be uncovered. A good meeting facilitator will get each person to test his or her impressions, feelings, and facts about each candidate. Lists of positive and negative aspects of the slate of candidates can then be used to make the final selection.

Adding interviewers to the schedule is time consuming and expensive and is not often done when the open position is a lower-level one. As a result, these candidates will get less thorough treatment by fewer people, including, perhaps, lower-level interviewers who may not have sufficient training and experience. This situation also arises when candidates just out of college are interviewed with little experience to validate, save their academic performance, course work, and college extracurricular experiences. Such individuals, if they are psychopaths, could cause a lot of problems down the road if they slip past the company’s defenses because they were not evaluated sufficiently.

B-Scan

We analyzed the succession plans of a few hundred North American executives and noted that the similarities between the developmental issues for some managers identified as “high potentials” and psychopathic-like features were startling. Our list of questionable characteristics—dysfunctional behaviors, attitudes, and judgments—was refined to form the B-Scan, a research instrument for use by companies as part of their evaluation for succession planning.

We obtained clear differences between a group of successful, high-performing executives and a group of
convicted
white-collar or economic criminals (that is, individuals who defrauded their companies and other innocent victims). In a follow-up
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investigation, we also found predictable differences between the successful high performers and corporate psychopaths.

Research on the B-Scan continues.

k n ow t h y s e l f

As we learned in earlier chapters, psychopaths’ objectives are to ingratiate themselves with their targets, establish trust, talk their way through any inconsistencies, build strong relationships with those in power, and then take parasitic advantage of everyone. During employment interviews, psychopaths (and others skilled at impression management) will quickly assess the interviewer’s value system, personal needs, and psychological makeup, and then tailor their speech and behaviors to make a good impression. A worst case would be for the interviewer to be so taken in that he or she does not challenge the data contained on candidates’ résumés, or does not push back very hard on vague reports of their performance on the job. A savvy interviewer will push past subtle influence attempts and stick to the interview agenda.

Only by having a clear understanding of his or her own strengths, weaknesses, biases, and idiosyncrasies can the interviewer hope to maintain the course of the interview and not fall prey to ingratiation. This is not an easy task, as it requires personal insight into one’s private self and public self (see page 69). The more you know about your own weaknesses, biases, and hot buttons, the better prepared you will be to fend off attempts by psychopaths and others to influence you.

ly i n g i s h a r d t o d e t e c t Many individuals believe that they are good at telling if someone is lying or not. Few of us can really tell. Even those who are trained to detect lying and deception are not particularly good at it. Criminal justice personnel are often asked to determine whether someone is
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lying or not, but recent research shows that their results are no better than that of the average untrained person. It is best not to guess whether an interviewee is lying, but rather to rely on corroborating evidence to get at the facts and ultimately the truth.

Look Me in the Eye

A series of advertisements that offered to pay investors an absurdly high rate of return contained this statement, “Look us in the eye before you invest.”

Hare called the company and asked to make an appointment to “look someone in the eye.” The secretary asked why he would want to do that, to which Hare replied, “Because the ad asked me to do so. I think they want me to see how honest they are.” The secretary laughed and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” Hare assured her that he was serious. She hung up.

The ad, of course, was a cynical ploy to tap into the common but mistaken belief that intense scrutiny of the eyes will reveal deceptive intent. This belief is a powerful tool for con men, as are solemn “up-front” declarations of honesty and integrity. Consider, for example, this quote from Enron’s 1998 annual report: “We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness, and arrogance don’t belong here.”

Of course they don’t. Besides, who can argue with the written word? Or with honest eyes?

VERIFYING THE FACTS

The best places to start the search for corroborating evidence are the prior employers listed by candidates on their applications, provided that they have granted permission to the hiring company to contact references. It is customary not to contact current employers. Appli-Enemy at the Gates

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cants often do not tell their current employers that they are considering a new job, and their request not to call them should be respected.

Verifying employment has a specific meaning in the business world. Verification is a highly structured process in which the hiring company contacts previous employers, reports to them the candidate’s name, title, salary or wages, and start and termination dates as noted on the résumé and application form. The prior employer is asked to say “yes” or “no” to each statement. There is no real exchange of new information, with the possible exception of whether or not the prior company would rehire the candidate. The response to this question can be deceiving, since many companies have policies prohibiting the rehire of previous employees. Even the word termination does not mean that the person was fired; only that he or she left the company. The actual reasons or circumstances for leaving are rarely given or are limited to carefully constructed statements. The purpose of this caution is to protect the prior employer from litigation or claims by the candidate that he or she did not get a job because of something defamatory the prior employer said. Some employees terminated for cause (this technical term refers to stealing, policy violations, taking illegal drugs, or abusing coworkers, among other things) leave with signed agreements from their previous employer assuring them that a negative reference will not be given; only a neutral one. This leaves the hiring company at quite a disadvantage, especially as performance ratings—the most important information about candidates—are almost never given. This is the information the hiring manager wants and desperately needs in order to make an informed choice among candidates.

Another difficulty is what to make of the information if discrepancies are noted. Some discrepancies are clearer than others. For example, “assistant director” is a different, higher-level job than

“assistant to the director,” and candidates are expected to know the difference. Discrepancies in reported salaries are always problematic, although some candidates will show reduced salary on their résumés
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because they do not want to have their candidacy discounted based on that fact alone. Other discrepancies are harder to assess. For example, candidates will sometimes increase their actual salaries to a round number, a practice that does not suggest deceit; employment dates may be vague or unclear simply because candidates do not remember them or because they wish to cover over legitimate gaps in their employment history. Contrary to common belief, being out of work between jobs is not necessarily a negative. In today’s economy, it can take months to get a new position as individuals search for the right career move. It is also not problematic for individuals to accept lower-level interim jobs—and include them on their résumé—as they search for a higher-level one, especially during times of economic downturn when senior level jobs are scarce. This may even indicate that the applicant is responsible and takes supporting his or her family seriously. Certainly, it is best for job applicants to be forthright, and interviewers should understand that career digressions are sometimes necessary, and take an open-minded approach.

Without much new information coming from the formal verification process, some hiring managers may try to circumvent the human resources department and call previous supervisors directly.

This sometimes works, but many companies train their supervisors well in this regard, telling them to direct all employment inquiries to human resources, and explaining to them the dangers of answering these “off-the-record” questions. Not every company follows this strict procedure, however, so hiring companies often use this route to find out how the candidate performed on his or her previous jobs.

REFERENCE CHECKING

Reference checking is an important step in the hiring process and should not be downplayed, despite the time it might take to do well.

On résumés and applications, most candidates list references who will provide favorable information. This is to be expected but should not dissuade the hiring manager or the HR staff from making con-Enemy at the Gates

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tact and learning more about the candidate. Psychopaths, though, can be expected to pad their résumés with false references—for example, friends posing as past employers—or to provide names of individuals who do not exist at all.