評論
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Business
商業版塊
Bartleby
巴托比專欄
Hire, liar
招聘與欺騙
Job candidates are not the only ones prone to exaggeration and a lack of realism.
容易言過其實且不注重實際的不只是應聘工作的人。
Hiring processes can be thought of as a battle between candour and dishonesty.
招聘可以被看作是坦誠和不誠實之間的一場戰斗。
You might imagine this is a simple fight between truth-seeking firms and self-promoting candidates, and to a certain extent it is.
你可能會認為這是尋求真相的公司和自我推銷的應聘者之間的一場簡單斗爭，在某種程度上的確如此。
But companies themselves are prone to bend reality out of shape in ways that are self-defeating.
但企業本身往往會扭曲現實并弄巧成拙。
Start with the obvious culprits: job applicants.
先從明顯的罪魁禍首說起：求職者。
The point of a CV or a LinkedIn profile is to massage reality into the most appealing shape possible.
簡歷或領英個人資料的用處是將現實塑造成最具吸引力的形象。
Everyone beyond a certain level of experience is a transformational leader personally responsible for generating millions in revenue; the world economy would be about 15 times bigger than it actually is if all such claims were true.
超過一定經驗水平的人都是能帶來革新的領導者，全憑個人創造了數百萬美元的收入，如果這些說法都是真的，那么世界經濟規模將是實際規模的15倍左右。
The average Briton spends four and a half hours a day watching TV and online videos.
英國人平均每天花四個半小時看電視和網絡視頻。
But the average job candidate uses their spare time only for worthy purposes, like volunteering in soup kitchens or teaching orphans to code.
但普通求職者只把業余時間用于有價值的事，比如在施舍處做志愿者，或者教孤兒編程。
The cover letter is so open in its insincerity ( When I saw the advertisement for this job, I almost fainted with excitement ) that people are starting not to bother with it.
求職信的缺乏真誠已經到了開誠布公的地步(當我看到這份工作的招聘廣告時，我幾乎興奮得暈倒了)，以至于人們變得根本懶得去讀它。
At the interview stage one task facing the firm's recruiters is to winkle out the truth of what a person actually contributed to a project.
在面試階段，公司招聘人員的一項任務是努力弄清某個人到底對項目做出了什么貢獻。
Those hoary questions about a candidate's weaknesses and failures are there for a reason; no one will bring them up unprompted.
關于應聘者有何缺點和失敗經歷的老掉牙的問題是有存在必要的，畢竟沒有人會在沒有提問的情況下主動談起這些話題。
Cognitive and behavioural tests are useful in part because they are harder for applicants to game.
認知和行為測試之所以有用，在一定程度上是因為申請者更難在這上面鉆空子。
But a tendency to stretch the truth infects companies as well as applicants.
但是，歪曲事實的傾向不僅影響應聘者，也影響公司。
The typical firm will write a job description that invariably describes the work environment as fast-paced and innovative, and then lays out a set of improbable requirements for the ideal candidate, someone who almost by definition does not exist.
典型的公司會寫一份工作描述，工作環境一定是快節奏和充滿創新氛圍的，然后對理想的候選人提出一系列不可能達到的要求，符合要求的人幾乎是不可能存在的。
Sometimes -- as when ads demand more years of experience in a programming language than that language has existed for -- these requirements include an ability to go back and alter the course of history.
有時(比如要求對某種編程語言的經驗比該語言存在的時間還長)要達到這些要求，需要有回到過去、改寫歷史的能力。
Industrialised hiring processes can often reward mindless exaggeration.
工業化的招聘流程往往會獎勵盲目的夸大其詞。
Services that scan your resume when you are making an application mark you down if your CV does not match the keywords that appear in the original job advertisement.
如果你的簡歷與招聘廣告中的關鍵字不匹配，當你申請工作時，掃描簡歷的機器會給你扣分。
The message is clear: to get through to the next stage, you have to contort yourself to meet corporate expectations.
信息很明確：為了能進入下一階段，你必須扭曲自己，以滿足公司的期望。
Substance can matter less to recruiters than form.
對招聘者來說，實質可能不如形式重要。
One software engineer says she got a 90%-plus response rate with a spoof CV showing apparent spells at Microsoft and Instagram but also boasting, among other things, that she had increased team-bonding by organising the company potato-sack race and spread Herpes STD to 60% of intern team .
一位軟件工程師說，她的一份惡搞簡歷達到了90%以上的回復率，簡歷上明顯地寫道她在微軟和Instagram工作過一段時間，但她還吹噓說，她通過組織公司的跳麻袋比賽而增強了團隊凝聚力，并將性傳播的皰疹傳染給了60%的實習生。
References are so prone to inaccuracy that many firms have a policy of not giving them, fearing legal action from defamed candidates or deceived employers.
推薦信非常容易失真，以至于許多公司都有不提供推薦信的規定，擔心受到誹謗的求職者或被欺騙的雇主會提起法律訴訟。
Too few firms offer an accurate account of what a position actually involves.
很少有公司能準確地描述一個職位的實際工作內容。
Tracey Franklin, the chief HR officer for Moderna, a fast-growing drugmaker and an interviewee in this week's episode of Boss Class (our new podcast) is a fan of "realistic job previews" (RJPs).
特蕾西·富蘭克林是一家快速發展的制藥公司莫德納的首席人力資源官，也是本周《老板課堂》（我們新推出的播客節目）的受訪者，她很推崇"真實工作預覽"(RJP)。
These are meant to give prospective recruits a genuine sense of the negatives and positives of the job, as well as a clear idea of the company's corporate culture.
這種預覽是為了讓應聘者對工作中的消極和積極方面有真實的感受，也對公司的企業文化有清晰的認識。
One effective tactic is to lay out, in text or video, what a typical day in the role would look like.
一種有效的辦法是以文本或視頻形式展示這個崗位的員工的普通一天是什么樣子。
Such honesty can be its own reward.
這種誠實本身就會帶來回報。
Research has long suggested that RJPs lead to lower turnover and higher employee satisfaction.
長期以來，研究表明，RJP可以降低員工流動性，提高員工滿意度。
A paper in 2011 by David Earnest of Towson University and his co-authors concluded that favourable perceptions of the organisation's honesty are the best explanation for why.
2011年，湯森大學的大衛·歐內斯特與其合著者在一篇論文中得出結論，人們對誠實公司有好感是RJP達到這些效果的最佳解釋。
The incentives on both sides of the hiring process lean naturally towards glossing reality.
招聘與應聘雙方自然都更傾向于粉飾現實。
If candidates were to give genuinely truthful answers (I have a habit of making basic but calamitous errors), many would rule themselves out of jobs.
如果應聘者必須給出完全真實的答案(我有犯基礎但具災難性錯誤的習慣)，那么許多人會直接放棄找工作。
And if firms were to give a warts-and-all description of themselves, many would end up deterring good applicants.
如果公司不能隱瞞自己的任何缺點，那么優秀的申請者可能會望而卻步。
But a process designed to uncover the truth about job applicants would run a lot more smoothly if firms were also honest about themselves.
但是，如果公司自身能做到誠實，那么旨在揭示求職者真面目的招聘過程也會順利得多。
