Sunday, May 8, 2016

Today's Utterly Unsurprising Finding in Social Psychology

Narcissists do better in job interviews.

After all, who would be better at talking themselves up?

3 comments:

G. Verloren said...

How would we go about altering the culture of hiring to stop favoring the fast talkers with delusions of self grandeur and start favoring the cautious, reserved, self effacing individuals? Is such a thing even possible?

John said...

Ditch interviews altogether -- except for jobs where talking to the public is key -- and rely entirely on resumes and references.

pootrsox said...

Even resumes are not necessarily going to give you the best candidate.

We had an assistant principal who loved the kids and the staff, and who was loved by them. He helped teachers improve their practice, helped kids avoid negative behaviors, supported every aspect of the school program, etc. (And he had degrees and excellent references from current staff and from his previous district.

His opponent (if you will) was a Brit who'd been Headmaster of Gonzaga College HS in DC (yes, he was a priest-- though he left the Jesuits before applying to our CT district)... he had a masters in geography from somewhere (McGill, I think) and a piece of paper from a 6-week "how to be an administratro" course-- but the piece of paper said either Oxford or Cambridge (I cannot remember at this distance).

The Board of Education ignored his total ignorance of how public schools operate as revealed in his interview, ignored the candid, engaged interview with the assistant principal, and went with the piece of paper-- b/c of the "prestige" of Oxbridge in this upper-middle-class suburb.

He was the worst principal in my almost 40 years of public school teaching. He was terrified of assertive women... he would cringe when he saw us coming. He lasted not quite two school years before fleeing back to the priesthood and the parochial schools. He moved to Long Island to be assistant principal in a Catholic junior high school.