BY STUDYLIE - HR Profiling

Concerning strong qualities, which candidates use to describe themselves, there is an excellent saying of by L.N. Tolstoy «The more the person is satisfied with himself, the less satisfying things can be found in him.» It is difficult to assess yourself. To convey your assessment objectively is not an easy task, too, since everything is relative. If you ask a 19-year-old girl from the village if she considers herself to be goal-oriented, she will answer «Yes» because she graduated from the 9th grade, unlike her friends who dropped out of school in the 7th grade. All of us once achieved a goal, even a small one, but to assert that all people have this strong would be hastily and biased.

And here I want to recall the experiment of Bertram Forer. In 1948 he showed the results of this effect. Forer gave his students a special test in order to analyze their personalities. However, instead of the actual individual characteristic, he gave each student the same text written in a generalized language, which is often used in drawing up a horoscope.

Here is the text that students received:

«You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.

At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.

You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.

Then B. Forer asked each student to evaluate the accuracy of this description according to their personal reality on a scale from zero to five, and surprisingly, the average evaluation was 4.26.

Most surely you also, after reading this text, would agree with a couple or more descriptions. And at the same time certainly you would not deny the fact that all people are different.

This example, among other things, illustrates the fact that people’s opinions about themselves do not always coincide with reality. Therefore, to evaluate what the candidate writes about himself one need to have a certain dose of skepticism, or not to take it into account at all, especially if the information you received from more reliable sources (or other points of the questionnaire) contradicts what the candidate says.

Candidate’s photo

We know many HRs who collect photos that absolutely disagree with resumes. One candidate sends a photo in the «nude» style with a cherry in his mouth, the other one makes photo with a bottle in his hand against a background of unbridled fun. What do these «photo reports» speak about? At least about the attitude to their employment. The analysis should also touch the details of the photo, in what setting and pose the candidate is captured, what he is wearing, what his body language is talking about. Even before the meeting with the candidate, this information will help determine both the basic psychotype and the metaprogram profile.

Cover letter

Based on the study of the text of the cover letter, we can evaluate how convincing the candidate is, how clearly and intelligibly he expresses his thoughts, determine his literacy, the structure of the letter, examine the text for adequacy to the context. One of the HRs had a case when a «cry of the heart» was sent as a cover letter. In the letter the candidate literally begged to employ him.

Preferred contact method

The choice of contact methods sometimes indicates whether the candidate is currently working elsewhere. Correspondingly it might shed light on the habits of behavior (e.i. a candidate hides from the employer that he is looking for another job, thus he might be ready to lie in your organization). For example, the candidate denies that he works in a company, but writes that the preferred contact method is mail and indicates a corporate e-mail.

It can also show how important it is for him to find a job; whether the candidate wants to know about his employment «here and now» or he prefers to get an e-mail and have some time to think which place to choose.

The next stage of work is collecting information about the candidate / employee from available sources with subsequent analysis.

Working with social networking sites

The first source that we turn to – a personal page in social networking sites (Facebook, VKontakte, Twitter, Instagram, MoiMir, etc.). Social networking sites are a storehouse of all sorts of information about a person, but analyzing pages and accounts of a person is a creative task, because there is no clear algorithm here.

Do not forget that filling the page, a person creates his own refined image. Actually, this is how a person would like to present himself to society. Of course, the ideal image is different from reality, and, nevertheless, we are interested in everything that a person tells about himself. What photos does he show, which one does he have as an avatar, what posts does he write, what reposts does he make, what groups he is subscribed for, what he «likes», how detailed is information about him, his statuses, the number of friends and subscribers, etc. Everything that is laid out by a person is connected with his perception of the world, his experience, system of values and beliefs.

Note the important difference between profiling pages in social networking sites and forensic profiling. How profilers come to conclusions when analyzing a crime, a crime scene, behavioral traces cannot be reduced to a formula or structure. The fact is that a person is a rather complex organism. He has a wide range of characteristics, peculiarities, experiences, capabilities and abilities that affect his behavior and decision-making process. There is no simple correlation, when one particular event characterizes one particular trait of a person. And yet, the set of actions that he used to do allows to come to a conclusion regarding his personal characteristics.

Profiler is well aware that when he works on the case of a criminal, he must always have doubts about the correctness of the decision. It is these doubts in the preparation of the profile that force him once again to double-check some things and make sure of other things. If the assumption made does not fit into the overall profile, then it is better to put aside this assumption. It happens that having processed the crime scene, we get data that contradict each other. It means that something went wrong, there is a mistake somewhere. If such a contradiction has arisen, it is better to stop and return to the beginning, to review everything again. So it is easier to understand at what point the mistake occurred.

For example, processing the trace picture and the crime scene, profilers see that the criminal picked the lock in the house, leaving no traces, did not wake anyone up, did everything quietly and carefully. No witnesses. The culprit wiped his fingerprints out or was in gloves, brought the crime instrument with him and then brought it away. The victims were wounded in the bedroom with no signs of a struggle. Most likely, he has experience in this matter and according to the FBI classification he is an organized criminal. But profilers found a broken flower pot in the corridor. Impulsiveness and negligence do not fit into the compiled profile. And since this footprint contradicts the general picture, it was not included into the profile. Besides, profilers do not know who was the author of this change. What if the cat broke the pot?