The Lies We Tell During Job Interviews

The Wall Street Journal
January 24, 2021

Is a job inter­view real­ly an exer­cise in decep­tion? Career coach­es and researchers who study false­hoods say yes.

It’s no won­der, real­ly. Even as chil­dren we’re social­ized to tell white lies about the gifts that Grand­ma brings or how din­ner tastes. Job inter­views are sim­ply a high-stakes exten­sion of that dynam­ic, says Robert Feld­man, a pro­fes­sor of psy­cho­log­i­cal and brain sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Amherst and author of the book “The Liar in Your Life.”

Kathryn Min­shew, chief exec­u­tive of careers site the Muse, says can­di­dates fre­quent­ly mis­lead when it comes to their expres­sions of inter­est. “Per­haps they just actu­al­ly need a pay­check,” she says. But no one’s going to con­fess that if they want to be hired.

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