You are certainly well of aware of this. Candidates for management positions usually know how to present themselves professionally during job interviews. They seem likeable, self-confident and they are able to sell their knowledge and skills perfectly. They simply seem ideal employees, but appearances are often deceptive. The employee who presented himself as an absolute professional at the interview can in fact be totally unacceptable for your business. How can you reveal the true face of your potential managers? An interesting method was recently mentioned on the Human Capital Management website.

It is a method of "a fake HR professional" used by the U.S. company GasPedal, operator of a website for marketers called WordofMouth.org. The company's CEO Andy Sernovitz wrote on his blog: "We have a fake head of HR named Preston Firestone. Job seekers call and ask for Preston (who is never there, of course). We listen to how they treat the person who answered the phone. Preston has saved us again and again from someone who would have been hired, but was actually a complete p***k." According to Sernovitz, the way candidates behave towards junior employees has a substantial predictive value. Preston Firestone can be found in the list of employees on the official website of the company and has his profile on LinkedIn (though using a photo of Frank Zappa).

What do you think about this peculiar method of sourcing managers? What methods do you use in your companies to reveal the real behavior of candidates for managerial positions?

-kk-