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Take Control of your Job Interview and get that job!

I would imagine that you are familiar with the usual job interview tips about dress, preparation, arrival times, follow-up notes, eye contact and the like, so I’ll offer a tip from a bit of a different perspective-a psychological one. As someone who’s been on both sides of the hiring process, I’m going to tell you how to take control of your job interview. If you follow these instructions, chances are your interviewer will fall over him or herself (let’s go with the masculine term from now on) wanting to hire you.

Here’s a truth: People, by and large, like talking about themselves, and they also like to feel important. And, in every interview there is a component of control, as in, who is directing the conversation. If you, as the applicant, wish to stand out to the interviewer you would be well served by subtly gaining control of the conversation. Direct it in such a way that the interviewing manager finds himself talking about what he thinks the organization is about and what the ideal candidate would be doing if hired. Once that’s done, all you have to do is agree with him and stroke his ego now and then by not only agreeing, but indicating that you think his ideas are wonderful. You can then provide examples of how you exactly fit the requirements by following the clues you’ve been provided.

How do you do that without being obvious and seeming like you are controlling the interview? Start off by answering questions, but increasingly become conversational-meaning, begin to end your statements with a question of your own. For instance, if you’re being interviewed for a non-profit position, and you’ve been asked about your fundraising ability, you would answer the question, and then follow-up with a question about what strategies they’ve already tried. With any luck, the manager will get excited and tell you what hasn’t worked, what has, and what his vision is. You then let him know you think the vision is sublime and give an example of how you’ve either done that before or how it fits with your personal style. He will feel affirmed, and begin to think you are an amazing fit for the organization. If you do it right, he will still feel in control (because he’s done a lot of talking) of the interview but will remember it after as it “free-flowing and natural.”

Hiring managers want to feel comfortable with and confident about whom they hire. They want to know that the person they hire gets their vision and won’t be a problem. What better way to present yourself as that great person than by finding out what his vision is and positioning yourself accordingly. Subtly stroking his ego along the way will leave him feeling very happy about bringing you on board. There’s a lot to be gained by being animated and saying, “That’s a great idea!”

One last tip to polish off that strategy: If you can find something that the two of you have in common outside of work, all the better. Not only do you have the same vision, but you both enjoy cross country skiing! Wow! You are awesome and must be hired!

Theo Selles, M.Sc.

It’s not “Sexual,” it’s Rape!

I was about half way finished writing a book about how to completely heal from sexual abuse when it hit me; one of the reasons why it’s so hard for abuse victims to recover is because what they experienced has been misnamed. We need to stop calling what was done to them “Sexual” abuse, because doing so implies that what was done to them was sexual, and many victims end up wrongly believing that they participated in acts of sex.

Calling what Jerry Sandusky did, “Sexual”, is about as accurate as calling it, “Showering”. Both mislabels confuse the issue. Sandusky’s “showering” was a minimization of his acts; an attempt on his part to make his monstrosities appear harmless. Referring to his acts as “Sexual” also minimizes and mainstreams the horror of his actions. “Sexual” is healthy, harmless, fun, natural, and consensual. What he did was rape.

Mike McQueary, he of the “I was just too shocked and confused” to save a raped child, testified in court that he saw Sandusky “having sex with a minor.” He said he witnessed Sandusky and the boy “in an extremely sexual position.” He also testified that he had no doubt that he was witnessing “anal sex”, and “absent of seeing a penis, yes I think they were having sex.”

Let me ask you this; if I put you up against a wall through threat, blackmail, intimidation, manipulation or whatever, and then put my penis in your butt, would you consider that we were having sex? Would we be “engaged in”, (oh how I despised the ongoing use of that phrase by the media), anal sex?

Later in the trial one of the victims said Sandusky “put his mouth on my privates.” That was a very accurate and healthy description. The press subsequently reported that he and Sandusky “engaged in oral sex repeatedly over a two year time span” and that the victim described “intimate details of sexual acts.” That description is nonsense and has the potential to do enormous harm to the victim. The victim’s testimony that Sandusky had “initiated numerous incidents of oral sex”, shows how easy it is for victims of rape and abuse to think that they engaged in sexual behaviour for which they often feel a life time of guilt and shame. (If I forced you to put any part of your body in my mouth or forced any part of my body into yours, would you think of that as oral sex?)

If you think this is just harmless semantics, consider the statement by Anthony Sassano, the police detective who investigated the case in 2009. He said, “It was a daunting task to get these young individuals to come forward-to get them to admit they’d been abused by a man, had performed sexual acts with that man.” So much is wrong and so much is telling about that statement. Most notably, those young individuals had nothing to “admit to” unless they somehow thought that they had done something wrong such as “perform sexual acts with that man!” Of course they were reluctant to talk!

Many of my clients come into therapy believing that their first sexual experience was with an adult who forced indignities upon them. How sad would that be for you? How horrible would it be for you to connect violations done to you with sex and your sexuality? How tainted might your sex life become?

Let’s call actions what they are so that they don’t get muddled up in the minds of the victims. Let’s look at what Sandusky did and name the acts appropriately. Sandusky did not “engage in” oral and anal sex. He raped boys orally and anally. His gross fondling was not a form of foreplay, it was molestation. Let’s stop calling it “Sexual”. There was nothing sexual about it.

We struggle a great deal in this culture to talk about sex. Sex is something private, all too often something to feel embarrassment and giggle nervously about. I can tell you from my experience providing Sex Therapy that all too often sex is associated with shame and morality infused messages invoking “dirtiness”. Sex is rarely talked openly about and perhaps this explains why it’s typical of rape victims to not come forward with their stories in order to bring their abusers to justice and to free themselves from their pain. Let’s help victims understand that they can talk about it, that it wasn’t sex, and that any and all shame associated with the violation belongs to the abuser, not to them.

We need to model for victims what to call it and how to talk openly about it. We need to do better than McQueary who said he told Paterno, but he did not describe what he saw explicitly “out of respect for the coach and his own embarrassment.” What he should have said was this: “Joe, I saw Sandusky behind a little boy and I think he was anally raping him.” No “sex”. No “compromising position”. Call it what it is. Call what Sandusky did, “rape, abuse, violation, molestation”, call it anything, just don’t call it “Sexual”.

Dealing with Liars in the Workplace

I wrote much of this as a response to a question about how to deal with liars in the workplace. I hope this is helpful and I welcome any feedback. It would seem to make for a good forum discussion.

There are different types of liars that you may encounter varying in the level of self-awareness and intentionality of their lying. Some people tend to embellish or exaggerate. Those actions, usually required by the embellishers to stroke or build their own fragile egos, can certainly be categorized as lies, but they tend to be less harmful overall than the lies of pathological or manipulative liars.

Some liars are pathological and compulsive, meaning that they seem not to be able to help themselves. They may lie out of habit, or fear, or simply because they’ve learned that lying has worked better for them than telling the truth. These liars may lie without even thinking about it as being a lie. In fact, they may even believe the reality that they construct.

Then there are the manipulative liars, fully aware of what they are about and being strategic about making others look bad and themselves appear better in comparison. These people will lie about the work they themselves do, and they will lie to you and about you to other people.

Once you’ve figured out that you are dealing with a pathological or manipulative liar, you must take steps to protect yourself and your reputation in the organization. Here are some techniques that you can use:

1) Very quickly avoid trying to resolve issues with them as you would with a person of integrity. All that does is put you in a situation of vulnerability. They will just use the information you share with them and will see your efforts to resolve issues with them as an indication of weakness.

2) Calmly and directly confront the liar immediately upon the lie-whether it occurs in front of witnesses or not. Simply state the truth and then avoid the crazy arguing that the liar will try to engage you in. If that person is a liar, it’s not just you in the organization that will know it, and your standing up to him or her might give someone else the courage to do so as well. A liar is a bully, and bullies need standing up to or they run amok.

3) NEVER meet alone with a liar to resolve a situation as you would a regular colleague. Doing so will set you up for further lies, including accusations on their part that you were inappropriate or abusive somehow in the meeting. Remember, they will lie, and also, since they lie, any agreement or resolution the two of you come up with will be broken by them anyway. Always try to have a witness in your dealings with a liar.

4) Document! Don’t let a situation develop where it’s your word against his or hers. Liars can be very smooth and practiced in presenting a distorted reality to your organizational superiors.

5) Let your integrity shine! Don’t stoop to the liar’s level. Show your integrity consistently in such a way that if it ever comes down to your boss or others having to believe you or the liar it will be no contest.

Lying at work is a form of harassment and bullying. It’s an activity that is often reflective of a dysfunctional organizational culture and a lack of consistent firm leadership that demands accountability to organizational values and standards. No one should have to put up with abuse and the accompanying experiences of distrust, insecurity, and anxiety at work. If you’re not satisfied with leadership’s response to your concerns, you may wish to consult with an employment lawyer, as well as talk with your physician about the stress you’re experiencing.

Theo Selles, M.Sc.
647-686-0661