Ex-policewoman Donna Brown’s daytime job is teaching border guards and investigators how to determine whether someone is using deception while trying to enter the country or explaining what just happened in a tentative situation. If it works for government officials then it must work for HR professionals and hiring managers who interview as well, which is where you come in.
Body language accounts for upwards of 55% of your communicated message. By learning to read an interviewee’s body language you could save your company a lot of grief, or shine by choosing the most brilliant candidates for advertised positions.
In ascertaining whether a candidate might be using deception in an interview or during a confrontational meeting, start by consciously paying strict attention to whether they are stuttering, hesitating, how they sit, how they hold or use their hands and how they dress.
Most interviewees are going to arrive looking pretty good, and polished candidates know to drop the appropriate buzz words that make them sound like they know their business. That being said, how people dress is often not the best indicator of their intentions, values or expertise for the job, but it is something to consider.
As a Body Language expert, Donna says that the body will ‘leak unconfidence’ if only you take the time to read it correctly. “You’ve got to watch their face, you can’t be writing and interviewing at the same time,” she says. Take the time to build rapport with your candidate. Find out about the person and establish their base-line behavior by asking about their commute in, their travel interests, etc. Note their body language during this stage as it is their norm against which all ensuing body language will be compared.
Donna purports that hand movements are “illustrators” and are to be taken seriously when “reading someone.” Ask the question, “Tell me about dealing with a difficult boss.” If the hands slow down from how active they were before the question was asked, this could indicate that the question is a concern.
You may have heard that if you ever witness a crime, memorize the criminal’s shoes. In an interview, people leak information with their feet. Who would have thought the lower appendages were so telling. If your candidate’s feet are pointing towards the door, they’re feeling uncomfortable and if the feet are turned upwards or a knee is shaking, they are ready to exit.
You are probably aware of the Belly Button Rule, facing the candidate belly button to belly button to allow for effective bonding. When the body turns away from this position it indicates disinterest, as does the defensive move of sitting on one hip or the other.
Aside from observing behavior you need to listen as well. Listen to the tone, pitch and rate of speech. When someone’s voice drops down at the end of a sentence it shows a lack of confidence or a deceptive answer.
“Tell me about a problematic situation you had trouble righting,” you might ask. If the candidate takes a deep breath or a quick sigh or releases air from their mouth chances are this is a difficult question for them, it probably hits home and they are preparing how they are going to answer, pay attention.
Did you ever wonder why Lady Di always had her head tilted to the side, experts would say she was listening and was interested in what you had to say. Then there are the micro expressions on your face. Because human beings use their faces to express themselves, watch for facial movements around the mouth and eyebrows.
Clearing of a throat could indicate a cold, allergy or a feeling of discomfort. It is important to know that one deception indicator does not necessarily mean a candidate is deceptive. Donna reminds us that for someone to be deemed deceptive, they must display a cluster of signs, not just one. Nervousness can easily be construed as deception, so be careful how you interpret body language indicators. Touching his or her face a lot may indicate that the candidate does not work well under pressure, as an interview is deemed to be a pressure situation by most interviewees.
It’s not easy to ask embarrassing or hard questions, but strong pointed questions can disclose sensitive, potentially red flag issues. Go after the red flags. If you see something, follow up on it; use your intuition to “read” the candidate.
If you would like to learn body language for interviewing purposes join Donna Brown at King-Reed Investigation Service’s one day conference on Reading People, Thursday, May 12, 2011.
Colleen Clarke
Career Specialist and Trainer
www.colleenclarke.com
Author of Networking: How to Build Relationships That Count and How to Get a Job and Keep It
Hi think the HR profession has gotten to be a circus show. The policies used to hire and screen people are impractical and do not actually achieve it’s objective.
Border gaurds will master this technique because of their job. HR professionals will not…instead there might be the novice HR people who will misuse it.
I have been asked all kinds of ridiculous questions, accused of lying in interviews…when clearly the interviewer was a novice who had not concept of the business functional areas and was only following a scripted dialogue.
It seems people who fake it actually get through the system move than people who legitimately know what they are taking about…e.g. the sales guy who enhanced sales by 25%…versus the more conservative guy who says his boss can provide a testimonial to his performance.
None of this is backed by science. It’s old wives tales.
The points raised are so obvious in this article, I fail to see how it can help any interviewer, and can even jeopordize a candidate’s chance of obtaining the job.
Asking a candidate about dealings with a difficult boss is obviously a concern. I don’t know of anyone who would not be concerned by such a situation. It’s not deception, it’s a normal reaction.
Asking someone to tell about a problematic situation will often result in a sigh or a deep breath. It’s normal; it’s problematic.
Comparing an interviewee with potentially deceptive border crossers is a bit much.
I can go on with other examples, but I think you all understand my point.
I’m not sure what the article is supposed to achieve. For me, this is a useless article and potentially dangerous for interviewees.
If interviewers do their homework and ask the right questions, they don’t need these highly subjective “tips” to get the job done.
I really believe that this is a science of indicators of human behavior, however enough of the malarky, people are people. Generally speaking and speaking from experience the person giving the interview is not qualified to make these assumptions. They will read something like this and attempt to apply it to their everyday job as a junior hr person.
Smarter people have been assigned of utilizing behavioral techniques. these are used for far more reaching spectrums than attempting to decide if a person is a fit because of the mannerisms that they may have. I have personally hired hundreds of people and let me tell you that what was written here is someone elses opinion based on bunk Your own understanding of what the job is and how it should be most efficiently accomplished by the right person with the right experience should be the topic of conversation.
I have been interviewed by many so called experts that were not worth their collective weight, I have seen many of these so called experts fall by the way side.
If they actually had any intellect it would be focused on understanding how the job should be done. Most of these people do not have a clue about that.
Society is heading in the wrong direction when each and everyone of us starts to decide on a persons future job prospects based on a mannerism
Does not make any sense to me, even a tiny bit!!!
Where your shoes or belly-button pointing… Very funny… But please don’t post these non sense articles.
Funny. I know of one HR manager who paid tons of attention to body language with a candidate. She came in said his indicators were all wrong.
He went on to outperform everyone in his industry for the next five years!!!
At the competition!!!
I felt he was a very strong candidate. In this case, intuition blew away body language. He later told me he was so put off by the way the interviewer was studying him (he felt like a lab animal) that mid-interview he decided he’d go with the competition and their offer. He wrote us off.
Beware if you are in HR and you treat a candidate like a guinea pig. My standing went up quite a bit at work when others remembered I was the one who thought he’d be good. The HR Manager turned red every time someone mentioned the competition and how well they were doing.
I also think it’s not advisable to bring star charts into an interview…
Whatever happened to the human element?
If you treat someone like a border guard would, you are bound to have candidates spread the word that YOU stink. And word-of-mouth kills in hiring just as it does in sales…
Be human. It’s a conversation not a cell under a microscope.
I find this article to be extremely concerning. If individuals read the academic literature on detecting deception it becomes quite clear that people operate at about chance levels (See the works of Saul Kassin, or Par Anders Granhag).. Furthermore, there is literature that suggests that undergraduate students actually perform marginally better than police officers at detecting deception (Kassin, Meissner, & Norwick, 2005).
There is also a great deal of social psychology research that illustrates that people have more positive impressions of individuals who smile more. And, further research illustrates that individuals sub-consciously mimic the body language of individuals they are engaged in conversation with and those individuals who resemble the “others” body language most closely garner more favourable impressions from observers (those with whom they are engaged in conversation). There are some cues that improve the detection of deception but people do not use those cues and even when doing so are still operating at levels marginally higher than chance. Therefore, I think the above advice is ill advised and Workopolis ought to consider the negative repercussions that might stem from encouraging individuals to search for deception. Searching for deception is a self-fulfilling prophecy – search hard enough and yee shall find.
P.S. The small caveat that a host of cues must be present to detect deception is not a sufficient warning.
Wow! Talk about MIS-reading people. I would not let this woman in any HR interview. She just simply doesn’t get it. Even scarier if these points are her basis for detecting deception. Send her back to school because it is obvious she missed all the people lessons the first time around!
Although this is good information to know and certainly some of this signs are good to consider when you may be dealing with a insecure candidate when you must fill a high profile position, I would say don’t take it to deep into this level as of considering that if a candidate exhibits one or two of these signs is to be declined. Stick to the candidates qualifications (both personal and professional) and achievements in previous positions. If he/she is a match, then fine. If it happens that this person is not getting the results intended for the position probably is due to another set of things, in which case then you will have to go back to the recruiting process, and the sooner, the better.
Interesting article, but by no means should this suffice to give interviewers the confidence to be able to read deception. I am sure the training that border officers recieve is a lot more in depth training and the training is related to specific questions and situations.
And on a side note, I think that lady Di’s face was titled to the side because she was more photogenic at an angle. She was aware of the photographer and was posing.
As a retired Police Officer with over 35 yrs. experience I have a few observations to make.
Reading people is a hard learned experience and can’t be done in a day long course.
As others have pointed out, a little information in the hands of a novice HR person is a recipe for disaster.
Police interviewing is far from HR interviewing and generally operates on the premise that the Police interviewer has a lot more facts about the interviewee and subject of the discussion than that of an HR person.
Frankly if I attended a job interview and got the impression I was being interrogated I’d walk out, no job is worth that.
You might just drive away the potentially best employee you ever could have hired.
This concerns me a lot, largely because simply for comfort, I tend to rest my weight on one side or the other. How is that defensive?
This kind of article, if taken too seriously, will have the same effect as watching too many police/forensic procedurals. People start to think themselves experts because they think they know what to look for.
@lulu – it’s spelled “ridiculous” not “rediculous” the article is talking about common body language and to be perceptive towards it. It is not saying these are the ground rules for an interview. They are suggestiopns. It is all about reading people and really just putting your best foot forward. Showing them a confident and successful individual that will make their business more profitable. Be who they want you to be and worry about being yourself after.
What a crock, I can just imagine if Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Winston Churchill and so many other great people present and past went through this nonsense they would never have worked and changed the world.
People who have Autism Spectrum Disorders are always the target of this nonsense despite being some of the hardest working, loyal and innovative people on the planet.
This ranks right up there with Police Constables saying truly stupid things like its all in his eyes, he can’t look me in the eye, males cannot communicate properly if they are face to face and eye to eye, they generally get sensory overwhelm anyone who teaches children knows this.
When I was running my business I had one simple rule, if you can do the work you’re hired, if can’t do the work but are willing to learn you’re hired and it didn’t matter your race, religion, colour or anything else.
I have hired stutters who exhibited no confidence whatsoever, I have people from cultures where it was considered rude to look the person in the eye, or to face another person with their bodies.
I have hired people were literally ready to run out the door and get working, their legs were literally jumping up and down because they wanted to get working.
This ranks right up with interpreting the bumps on your head to determine whether you are a good person or not.
Sorry, But Donna Brown you don’t look old enough or have had that many years of experience with deception. It takes many years just to learn the basic’s and sometimes it can be wrong.
That’s what wrong with our Country, we are looking at the negatives over the positives.
Sincerely, Jim
Reading people is an acquired skill – it takes time and experience.
Ask any professional from a poker player to a police officer.
Over time one learns to observe and listen and develops intuition and ‘gut feel’. One learns to drill down into a question or issue or to ask it another way. Certain types of individuals require more leeway than others because of nerves or other medical conditions.
This is why polygraphs are not allowed in court.
JA said: “He later told me he was so put off by the way the interviewer was studying him (he felt like a lab animal) that mid-interview he decided he’d go with the competition and their offer. He wrote us off.”
I have a similar story with a different twist. A friend of mine works in HR, often interviewing candidates with a line manager. One of these managers would always insist on interviewing candidates in rooms without a table. When asked about this, he would cite “observing body language” as his reason, with justification similar to that listed in this article. According to my friend, this manager would do a lot more “observing body language” when the candidiate is a young and attractive female. Make your own conclusions, nothing is alleged or proven here.
I’m delighted to read the comments following this article. Everyone seems to agree that a military style interviewing approach is more akin to an interrogation. The border guard offering this course should stay in her original field and leave businesses to do what they need to do in their own way.
A note to Colleen Clarke – I hope you don’t encourage this type of interviewing by publishing more of this approach. It’s appalling and suitable to the dictatorial style regimes in the middle East that are now falling.
Malarky. If an interviewer were to watch my feet they would note constant shuffling of my left foot which is still experiencing discomfort from being in any one position for more than a few minutes as the result of a motor vehicle accident. I also have a rotated pelvis which causes some discomfort when seated in one position for too long so I tend to reposition often. If someone were to ask me about a difficult situation that I had to deal with of course I would sigh, that question is bringing back unpleasant memories. Dealing with a bad boss is again going to recall very bad memories of an owner that went on a disgusting tirade for 5 minutes screaming every profanity in the book and some that I had never heard as he switched from Greek to Arabic to Russian and English. Give me a break do your homework, review the qualifications, check out all the references thoroughly and use your gut. Your intuition will tell you more about a person than the nonsense above IF you’ve!
done your homework.
Because I work in insurance, I found the article interesting. As an auto adjuster, people often lie about their claims because they think they may be denied. The above approach is suitable for doing my job when peolpe are making statements about their claim, but as an interview approach I think it is borderline. I would agree that posting this as an ‘expert’ method is not correct, although some may find it helpful in some other professional capacity.
i interviewed a few companies that used the approach, came across like they were untrusting, suspicious…needless to say i didnt go back. why work in a place thats so twisted.
generally i get up, present on how i’d work with them, appraoch the challenges they have, my plan for the first 3-6 months and go from there. this is a good way to show expertise, approach but also see if the company is committed to the role.
As a rule, I am nervous during an interview so I find this article quite appalling. I have however, still managed to find employment when I needed it so maybe the interviewer was not using these techniques. However, in the future I will keep this in mind.
You certainly won’t help yourself if you don’t look at the border officer in the eye. But you are far more likely to be stopped at the border if you are evasive, or even worse lie, about the real purpose of your trip, the length of stay and your cigarettes, alcohol and firearms.
If you’re clean and honest, the border guard usually will let you pass, albeit perhaps after an inspection, whether your mannerisms made you perform poorly or well. Have a good holiday, or welcome back home. But if you make the wrong moves or if your voice quavers ever so slightly at the job interview, good luck.
By the way, the border guard’s methods and tools go far beyond looking at body language.
I am an older woman and I find that when I am interviewed by women under the age of 30, the difficulty is their lack of knowledge as to the proper way for ladies to sit, stand, and hold their posture is a major problem. I was sent to charm school, and we were drilled in sitting up straight, not sprawling against the back of the chair, feet flat on the floor and legs together, hands folded in our laps if there is no table, or folded on the table, with elbows close to our bodies, shoulders easily straight, not drooped, and chin level as the head faces the person to whom we are talking. I was once asked why I studied Victorian History and Literature at University, and the utter bewilderment on the face of the interviewer was comical.
This is just goofey. No wonder I get stopped at the border. I couldn’t talk until age 7 and have difficulty still in some circumstances. Too bad the real criminals are passing by while I am being grilled. Too bad the silly ones get the job and not the honest guy
As a workplace investigator, and an experienced HR interviewer, I understand that the author only had a limited amount of space to script this piece. To cover off on all the other elements, that easily can be incorporated into a friendly “people” interview setting, such as rapport building, statement analysis, cultural differences and facial expressions, would have resulted in a day’s worth of reading. I can attest using these skill sets, while practicing a personal approach has saved our organization on many different levels, and our staff are the ones we want working for us.
I have actually attended one of Donna Brown’s training sessions and found that I learned a lot from her. I don’t think that she is encouraging a military style interrogation interview in the private sector, rather she is trying to educate individuals on the science of body language. And it is based on science, folks. If you are not interested in learning a few new things then I suggest that you simply not attend her course, but if you give it a chance I think that you will be surprised at what her training has to offer. On another note, the photo above is not Mrs.Brown. She is a seasoned officer just about ready to retire from her law enforcement career.
Ted Bundy was a charming, confident, and charismatic individual, so he probably would have gotten any job he interviewed for, as long as he was qualified. He was also possibly the most prolific and sadistic serial killer we’ve ever seen, so that shows you how much confidence you should be putting in a person’s outward appearance and behavior.
I am a univeristy student who had the great honour of listening to Ms Brown lecture at our univeristy. I found her bright, funny and compassionate. She addresses many of your concerns mentioned above . I’m not sure this writer gave you all the right impression of who this woman is. Her training and mastered certification from the United States is very impressive, but it is her years of experience with the public that I found most interesting. She talks about eye contact ,mental illness ,disorders , cultures differences ( body language is NOT universal people- but micro expressions are .-and I learned when someone does not give you eye contact it doesn’t mean they are lying ) she really gets you to think outside the box.
There is even a disorder where you can’t show emotion on the face-forget the name of it who knew? I learned different techniques on how to build rapport with someone- to watch ,learn and listen and to follow my gut feeling. I also learned some great tips on how to stay safe as a woman . I really enjoyed the lecture -I’d classify it as one of the best I have ever had in my 4 yr at university.
It is based on research ever heard of Desmond Morris , Darwin , Paul Ekman , Mark Frank , David Givens ? I bought all the suggested reading she advised and am now reading them- and learning a lot.
I got the impression that you people are paranoid and angry not sure about what ! I’d rather listen to someone who has walked the talk – then people who simply talk.
If you are that worried about what you could learn don’t go to any of her lectures but if you like to learn and think outside the box , get creative in your HR interviews- then I’d go
Like Dee I have attended Donna Brown’s training sessions (at least three workshops). I learned a tremendous amount from her. Unfortunately, the article does not provide the reader with just how much science, analysis and social science behind the techniques Donna provides in her work shops. She is a fascinating speaker with tremendous skills, the kind that should be more widely understood in the world of HR and interviewing in general. I am an HR professional and I am convinced that what she teaches should be taught to all HR professionals and managers who conduct interviews of prospective employees. Do not judge Donna by this article, if you do, you have missed the point.