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8 CREDIBLE Steps To Become A Successful Interviewer

Written by Humintell Affiliate Jay Abiona of Credible Security Solutions

Have you ever conducted an interview and were unsure if the individual was being 100% honest? If so, then this article is for you!

We all know that the largest cost in any business is usually payroll. In order to have loyal, hardworking and HONEST team members, you need to hire appropriately.

As a business owner, we have an obligation to our clients to ensure the highest levels of integrity and that all starts with our team and who we hire.

This article will assist you with hiring the ‘right’ candidate within your business by providing you tips on how to truly conduct a successful interview.

According to Statistic Brain, $50 billion is stolen annually from U.S. Businesses by their employees. That is almost equivalent to $137 million a day that comes right off the bottom line from all companies combined throughout the nation. This is a staggering amount, which can be blamed on our economy, a company’s culture, their screening process and I personally know it can be seen & prevented during the hiring process. Mainly in the first INTERVIEW and I want to show you how.

There have been dishonest people throughout the world for thousands of years and obviously this will continue but the question is not one’s level of integrity but why are we hiring someone who is being dishonest during the interview?

Since, I am sure no one would knowingly hire someone who was being deceptive during an interview; I could only assume it is because the interviewer is not aware of the non-verbal modes of communication that occur during EVERY conversation.

I am going to cover eight (8) CREDIBLE steps that will assist you within the hiring process, making your interviews more effective, which in turn will help you make a better decision when attempting to hire the ‘right’ person for the job.

1.    CONDUCT A THOROUGH REVIEW OF THE RESUME:

According to the Society of Human Resource managers, 53% of people lie on their resume. So, that means more than half of the people you interview will have inaccurate information on their resume/application.

When reviewing a resume, you should be aware of time gaps, numerous employers, education level and experience in the position they are applying for.

If you are reviewing an application, you should pay close attention to the reasons they left their previous employer/s, criminal convictions and missing names/numbers of previous employers. This is the information you will use to base some of your questioning during an actual interview.

2.   REVIEW THE REFERENCES:

Now, some businesses will not give you any information regarding an applicant and may have you contact their corporate office.

However, it doesn’t hurt to try and who knows, you may get some very insightful information that you could use in your interview.

So, please ensure you are taking notes while conducting your reference checks and use these notes as a guide with regards to their previous employers, education and additional skills they CLAIM to have on their resume or application.

3.    ELIMINATE INTERRUPTIONS:

You can do this by placing a ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign on the door, turning off your mobile phone, asking them to turn their phone off and/or unplugging any landline phones in the interviewing area.

Then remove the barrier that most interviewers have when conducting an interview. You know the barrier I’m referring to.

Come out from behind your desk and place two chairs facing one another in the middle of the room with nothing in between them. Now, you the interviewer should be sitting in a rolling chair, preferably one with a backrest and armrests. The interviewee should be sitting in a stationary chair with a backrest but without wheels and preferably without armrests.

This will help you read their body language during the interview and since their chair will not have wheels, they will not be able to roll their chair & release nervous energy.

4.    DON’T ASK CLOSED ENDED QUESTIONS:

You should be doing 20% of the talking as they should be doing 80% of the talking, which can be accomplished by asking open ended questions.

For instance, “Tell me about a time you were terminated by one of your previous employers.” as opposed to “Have you ever been terminated by one of your previous employers?” The first question is open and will cause the guilty party to think more about the answer, which in turn may cause non-verbal modes of communication or body language markers of discomfort.

This can help you identify the dishonest candidate and actually motivate them to be honest about their previous performance issues as well as why they were terminated. We will talk more about that in step # 5.

The latter of the two questions is closed and could be easily answered with a simple ‘no’, whether they were or were not terminated in the past.

5.    INTENSIVE LISTENING:

An honest person will usually speak with confidence and in a timely manner to the question being asked. Using the example above, an honest person after hearing the question “Tell me about a time you were terminated by one of your previous employers.” will quickly reply; “I’ve never been terminated!” if they in fact have not been.

However, the dishonest candidate may pause and take a moment to think before answering that question because of how it was asked. Since a simple yes or no doesn’t suffice, they will need to think more about the actual time they WERE terminated! That pause in answering can mean a few things such as them thinking about, which job of the many they may have been terminated from or they may be deciding whether or not to be honest with you (Internal Dialogue).

That is when your rolling chair comes into play and is used to move in just a bit closer and with a soft spoken tone of voice say something like: “Hey, we’re both human and we all make mistakes and bad decisions sometimes. What happened?, Why were you terminated?” This rationalization is how you can motivate them to be more honest with regards to answering that question. This technique can be used with other open ended questions as well.

6.   BE AWARE OF THE NON-VERBAL CLUES:

Please keep in mind when reading body language, the markers or ‘tells’ mentioned below must come in clusters and be timely with the questions asked.

Just observing one or two of the body language markers mentioned below does NOT mean the candidate is being deceptive. These behaviors are usually associated with individuals who are nervous in general and that would be a normal reaction during an interview. However, we all know that a person being deceptive will most likely be nervous as well.

So, be mindful of the following body language markers or ‘tells’:

  • Tone of voice
  • Eye contact/movement
  • Red/flush/blotchy skin
  • Body alignment
  • Hesitation with answers
  • Breathing pace
  • Open or closed body language
  • Avoiding questions
  • Position of legs/feet
  • Look for unusual reactions
  • Dramatic changes in body position
  • Negative tone on specific questions
  • Wringing of hands/repeated rubbing or scratching

Once again, please keep in mind when reading body language, the aforementioned markers or ‘tells’ must come in clusters and be timely with the questions asked.

Just observing one or two of the body language markers above does NOT mean the candidate in being deceptive. You are merely evaluating comfort levels to the questions being asked.

To learn more about body language markers, feel free to click on or search #ClipWithATip now.

7.    LOOK FOR FACIAL MICRO-EXPRESSIONS:

Seven Universal Facial Expressions of Emotion (Humintell)Another body language marker to pay close attention to are the facial micro-expressions that happen sometimes in a fifth of a second, which can help you determine what emotion they are truly feeling at the very moment the question was asked.

The Seven Basic Emotions are 1. Anger, 2. Contempt, 3. Disgust, 4. Fear, 5. Happiness, 6. Sadness 7. Surprise.

These emotions have been scientifically proven to have a certain facial expression associated with them, which you can see below in the photos

8.    ENSURE THAT THREE FORMS ARE PROVIDED:

So, you feel this is the person you would like to hire? I would strongly suggest having EVERY potential employee read and sign a background check consent form, credit check consent form as well as a drug test consent form.

Once they are provided with these documents, they have been informed that these extra preventive measures are in place, which may in turn make them reconsider employment if they KNOW you are checking all three areas. If they sign the forms, ensure all three checks are actually completed.

In conclusion, there are numerous tools you can use to ensure you are conducting a successful interview. The eight steps mentioned above are a few of the basics needed in order to become a successful interviewer and assist you within the hiring process.

If you truly want to master the art of interviewing, then you should NOT miss my presentation entitled “Interviews For Success: An insiders approach to reading body language.”, where I discuss open ended questions, facial micro-expressions and how to read body language effectively.

The post 8 CREDIBLE Steps To Become A Successful Interviewer first appeared on Humintell.

Science: An Enterprise to Generate Knowledge

By Humintell Director Dr. David Matsumoto

We’ve heard a lot in the past year and a half about “listening to science.” Certainly, I believe that science is important to us today in our society. But when I heard what was said about science, the messages I heard were not so much about the science as it was to listening to those who said to listen to the science.

I thought we were losing a teaching opportunity to educate the public about science. Because the message that has been given during this time is basically that “science” is something that’s beyond everyone’s grasp and people just need to listen to those who kind of get it.

I don’t think so.

So, I decided to put my thoughts about science in this brief video, as a scientist but also as an educator. I believe what I have to say about science could have and should have been covered through the education of a society. Yet it’s apparent to me that that kind of education has not occurred for many people, in this society and probably a lot of other societies as well.

To me, understanding science is all related to critical thinking because understanding science is about exercising critical thinking.

What is Science?

To me, science is an enterprise to generate knowledge.

So how does science generate knowledge? I believe there are three parts or layers or levels to the enterprise of science.

  1. Individual studies

Probably the most basic level is the individual study. Science involves scientists conducting studies.

There are many, many different types of studies:

  • Controlled experiments
  • Correlational studies
  • Surveys
  • Case studies
  • Longitudinal studies
  • Double-blind controlled study

On the individual level of studies, “science” includes what may be considered specialized methods to test ideas that are called hypotheses. But these specialized methods, called methodologies, are ways to collect data- to test the hypotheses, and get a finding that can say that the hypotheses are either right or wrong.

Those ways of collecting data, those methodologies, essentially evolve around an idea of reducing uncertainties, and any ambiguities that are inherent in any findings based upon those same methodologies.

Thus, understanding individual studies requires some degree of critical thinking about how one can generate findings. Again, that’s not the purpose of today’s thoughts but basically, that’s what methodology is.

Conducting a single study well requires scientists to employ strict procedures to control as many factors as possible in order to isolate effects, and eliminate rival, unintended hypotheses from explaining their findings.

Research methods, these ways of collecting data, are really exercises in critical thinking with big important labels.

Most people can get methodology if it’s explained to them as critical thinking in terms of how we can reduce uncertainty and ambiguity in findings based upon a certain way of collecting data.

Whenever we conduct a study, we do everything we can to reduce that uncertainty or ambiguity in the findings- it’s quality control. Increasing the quality of control of an individual study, is called internal validity.

Yet increasing that quality control comes at a cost of decreasing applicability to other samples with other methodologies in the real world, which is called external validity.

Whenever we increase internal validity to reduce ambiguity, we generally decrease external validity or how well those findings can situate with other samples.

This is just a general characteristic of any individual study.

There are scientists like me, and many, many other people who conduct studies, and generate individual findings.

  1. Studies that study studies and analyze data from previous studies

The second level of the enterprise of science, involve studies that study studies, or studies that analyze data from previous studies.

If you can imagine the first level involving many individual studies, this next level takes those individual studies and studies those studies.

Oftentimes, this second layer of study involves the statistical findings from the individual studies and puts them all together in a grand kind of analysis. Those are called meta-analyses.

But there are other ways of doing this as well.

Another way would be to examine the body of evidence just on the basis of logic, just examining the findings, and understanding the methodologies by which those findings were generated, and drawing some conclusions about them.

Now we’re drawing conclusions about groups of studies, and conglomerations of studies of bodies of evidence. That is the second layer of the enterprise of science.

  1. Conceptual work to extract knowledge from studies or studies of studies

The third layer of the enterprise of science is more conceptual.

The third layer involves extracting knowledge. Scientists examine the body of literature that could involve individual studies, as well as the second level study of studies and extract knowledge from those bodies of evidence.

A that point, we can get to some generalizable greater knowledge because no matter how important an individual study is, it generally cannot tell us about extracted knowledge that’s applicable to a lot of people in general.

When we can extract that knowledge from a body or bodies of evidence, from studies and or studies from studies, we can generate theories and models, which should then generate more hypotheses, they should be tested in more individual studies, which goes back down to the beginning.

The enterprise of science actually is a circle.

The enterprise of science

Or is a cycle where theories and knowledge that’s extracted at the top feed produce more hypotheses that feed back to more individual studies at the bottom, and there’s that creates a body of evidence for bodies of evidence, that raise it rises up again, through studies of studies, where we scientists extract knowledge, etc, etc, etc.

So this process can be referred to in many different ways. And you can take a look at this chart, which may be called a knowledge pyramid. And you can see the bottom of the chart refers to data. And to me, the facts, these individual findings that are created by individual studies are represented by data at the bottom of this pyramid. That’s the lowest rung on the pyramid. It’s a it’s a bunch of facts.

And individual studies, any one individual study can generate many facts and thus you’ve got many studies generating many facts.

The next level of this knowledge pyramid involves the conglomeration of those facts from study. So it’s really corresponds to my level two studies of studies. Which takes those facts on the bottom even disparate, contradictory facts and find ways to make sense of them. And this produces some level of information.

And then the third level where scientists can extract knowledge from that information from those studies of studies, that refers in this pyramid to knowledge.

The Messiness of Science

Now one thing to remember about all of this, I want to mention is what I call the messiness of science.

The findings from individual studies are rarely clean in any one study. And then across studies, there’s always contradictory and confusing findings about any one single domain of research.

This is especially true when those studies regard humans and human behaviors.

I’ve been studying humans and human behaviors for over 40 years. And I know how messy it can be in one study, and then especially across studies. It’s likely true in all other fields of study, but I, you know, I, I’m not an expert in those other areas. And so I can’t, I won’t comment on that, but at least in psychology, with regard to human behavior, there’s a lot of messiness in any one study.

And then across studies, thus, when people try to convince me about something, that you know what they’re wanting to give me a claim about something. I’m not convinced about it by hearing about a study or two that supports that claim, because I’m more interested in hearing about the conglomeration of evidence.

That that body or bodies of evidence both pro and con, both for and against that claim.

Because on the level of individual studies, I believe all findings, all findings from all studies are true given whatever methodology given whatever ways of collecting data, were used to generate those findings.

But to believe, larger claims to believe knowledge is what is gleaned from understanding the findings from many studies, both for and against the claim, and understanding, thus understanding the methods or the ways in which those findings were generated. Because that’s how we can understand that information. That’s how we have knowledge.

And the other thing about this is that when people report about studies, or studies of studies, anything can be cherry picked.

And thus, for me, one better way to think about a claim or knowledge is understanding all of the studies all of the findings, for and against something, and then making a decision about that, not just hearing one side and not the other.

Where is the Wisdom?

Whoever, I want to turn to this topic now about wisdom and ask “where is the wisdom in all of this?” because in all of this discussion about science, we’re missing what the top of this chart refers to.

And a shared understanding of why it all matters, and what we should do about it, which we can generally call wisdom.

Although studies are of course important, and I spent a lifetime conducting studies, it seems like we may need less facts about some things and more shared understanding, and especially wisdom about a lot of those facts in society today, and especially about important topics that are facing us today.

I hope that we can all search for that wisdom and get that wisdom for all of us.

Finally, one thing to consider is that “science” is a method that some or many societies have decided is the primary method of knowledge creation that they will rely on. Nothing wrong with that, I believe in science. I have done science for as I said, over 40 years and I will continue to do science.

But at the same time, I recognize that science is not the only method to generate knowledge and especially not the only method to generate wisdom, which is a shared understanding of the knowledge and knowing what to do about it.

Knowledge is different than that shared understanding and wisdom.

I know a lot of people who have had a lot of wisdom to impart in my life. Who were not scientists. We didn’t have advanced academic degrees, who didn’t have a job in a university didn’t publish a paper, but they had a lot of wisdom.

And I think there’s a place for that in society, in addition to the science not to substitute or replace science or vice versa. But there’s a place for that. And we can consider wisdom generated from other sources as well, not just the science as we consider the advantages and disadvantages of the enterprise of science.

Let me close with some words from TS Eliot’s poem, Choruses from the Rock. These are two lines extracted from that.

I hope this has been interesting. For many of you, it’s a topic that I feel passionate about as I proceed with my own attempts at doing science and generating knowledge and not forgetting about wisdom.

The post Science: An Enterprise to Generate Knowledge first appeared on Humintell.

Domestic Violence: A Pandemic Within a Pandemic?

domestic violence awareness month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We are dedicating this month to draw attention to this unspeakable crime and continue efforts to raise awareness and stop the violence.

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The Staggering Stats

According to the WHO, across their lifetime, 1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner.

This number increased sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading some to call domestic violence a pandemic within a pandemic.

According to Time Magazine, growing evidence shows the pandemic has made intimate partner violence more common—and often more severe. Surveys around the world have shown domestic abuse spiking since January of 2020—jumping markedly year over year compared to the same period in 2019.

Research conducted by the University of California, Davis suggests that extra stress in the COVID-19 pandemic caused by income loss, and lack of ability to pay for housing and food has exacerbated the often silent epidemic of intimate partner violence.

The Aftermath of Domestic Violence

See below for Kat Masley’s personal story on being a domestic violence survivor. Originally published on NCADV’s blog, re-printed with permission.

“I don’t give a shit about your stupid little teen soap opera.”

A seemingly simple statement, albeit a bit nasty. But it was said with such vitriol that it stopped me in my tracks for a second. It was the first time he had ever spoken to me like that, and I was caught off guard by the gruff in his voice. All I wanted to do was watch a show that comforted me, and I was super confused as to why he was reacting this way. I ultimately shrugged it off. It was only years later as I was reflecting on my life with this man that I thought, “Wow, that was a red flag that I so easily dismissed.” It was my first peek into the guy I’d wind up calling “Mr. Hyde.”

Cue to six years later and I’m sitting in Planned Parenthood waiting for the doctor to come in and scrape out the cluster of cells that could have one day been our baby. Only I found out I was pregnant shortly after discovering he was cheating on me. The days (and very long nights) leading up to that moment were filled with insomnia, tears, screaming, tremor-inducing anxiety, intimidation, other women, deep depression, questioning my sanity, 911 calls, and what very closely resembled a drinking problem on my part. The days after that moment were, and still are, loaded with PTSD and night terrors.

Whenever I displeased him, I was met with an array of consequences. One night, my belongings and I were (literally) thrown out of the house into an ice storm at 2 a.m. We had been drinking, and I had no choice but to sleep it off a bit in my car, being that I was an hour away from my home. I then proceeded to drive home at four in the morning, still not sober, in an ice storm. Could he see my car was there for a few hours? Yup. Did he attempt to see if I was OK or ask me to come back inside? Nope. I was serving my sentence and he’d be damned if he didn’t teach me a lesson.

Another time, after bringing up yet another one of his indiscretions, I was backed into the corner of the kitchen, scared stiff as he punched the table in front of me. Fearful that the next object might be my head, I attempted to call 911 while not making it obvious that I was trying to do something on my phone. My acting skills went out the window, and my phone went across the kitchen.

I left a million times. The sick cycle of abuse got me, though, and I continued to go back. Abusers are extremely skilled at “love bombing” and discarding. It was like being on a see-saw, only by myself. The back-and-forth became an unsteady way of life that I thought I deserved. I was always made to feel it was my fault, so I kept returning to the relationship. I didn’t realize until years into it that what I was experiencing was abuse, and it was only at the hands of a few close friends that I was able to come to this conclusion — I was blind to it.

I discovered what gaslighting was, though I wasn’t self-aware until the tactic had long been used on me. He systematically assaulted my reality and twisted it until it became unrecognizable, even to me. In short, he had convinced me I was losing my mind. I started to believe that I didn’t, in fact, properly recall certain events or conversations. Or perhaps I misheard. Or my favorite, he “misspoke”, and therefore I should only take heed of what he was saying NOW.

Signs of PTSD still linger. I have very negative reactions to loud voices/yelling or if someone hits or slams something around me. It feels as if my insides start eating themselves, in the hopes that I can inevitably decrease into nothing and I don’t have to endure what’s happening around me any longer. That’s one of the sensations I recall being constant in my time with him: Trying to shrink. Wanting to become as physically small as possible. Willing myself to be invisible.

The aftermath of an abusive partner is not pretty. Being purposely kept off-balance for six years while being mentally terrorized has long-lasting negative effects. I am still learning how to process and deal with it all, years after that pivotal moment in PP. That moment when I decided that I would not allow a child to grow up with such a man as its father. When I realized having a baby would mean I would be tied to him for the rest of my life. That moment when I finally said, “Nope.”

It’s been four years and four months since sitting in that operating room. I left him for the last time after my abortion. I moved out of my home state. I’m hyper-vigilant when it comes to anything that might relate to him. For example, the thought of visiting home/friends is a daunting one. I wonder how to plan/who to tell so as not to have word spread that I’m in town. I have given very few people my address or any details about where I live for fear of a surprise guest. Little things like this, that most people wouldn’t stress about, have become a mandatory way of thinking for me. Another thing I’m still trying to work out.

These days I tell myself it can only get better. It doesn’t have to haunt me forever, though I understand that it still might mess with me a bit in the coming months and maybe even years. But at the end of the day I think of it this way: It’s a lesson, not a life sentence. I am the strongest person I know.

Kat Masley is a New Jersey-born artist & writer. After considering publishing this blog anonymously, she decided that is was HER story to tell, any way she wanted to. She hopes it allows others who may be in her situation to see that there is hope, light at the end of the tunnel, and within you, a strength you never knew you had. Kat currently lives in Los Angeles, CA, and is beyond grateful she has her life back. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram

If you or someone you know needs help, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

The post Domestic Violence: A Pandemic Within a Pandemic? first appeared on Humintell.