2023年经济学人 招聘过程中的欺骗

（单词翻译）

Business

商业版块

Bartleby

巴托比专栏

Hire, liar¹

招聘与欺骗

Job candidates are not the only ones prone² to exaggeration and a lack of realism.

容易言过其实且不注重实际的不只是应聘工作的人。

Hiring processes can be thought of as a battle between candour and dishonesty.

招聘可以被看作是坦诚和不诚实之间的一场战斗。

You might imagine this is a simple fight between truth-seeking firms and self-promoting candidates, and to a certain extent it is.

你可能会认为这是寻求真相的公司和自我推销的应聘者之间的一场简单斗争，在某种程度上的确如此。

But companies themselves are prone to bend reality out of shape in ways that are self-defeating.

但企业本身往往会扭曲现实并弄巧成拙。

Start with the obvious culprits: job applicants³.

先从明显的罪魁祸首说起：求职者。

The point of a CV or a LinkedIn profile is to massage⁴ reality into the most appealing shape possible.

简历或领英个人资料的用处是将现实塑造成最具吸引力的形象。

Everyone beyond a certain level of experience is a transformational leader personally responsible for generating millions in revenue; the world economy would be about 15 times bigger than it actually is if all such claims were true.

超过一定经验水平的人都是能带来革新的领导者，全凭个人创造了数百万美元的收入，如果这些说法都是真的，那么世界经济规模将是实际规模的15倍左右。

The average Briton spends four and a half hours a day watching TV and online videos.

英国人平均每天花四个半小时看电视和网络视频。

But the average job candidate uses their spare time only for worthy⁵ purposes, like volunteering in soup kitchens or teaching orphans⁶ to code.

但普通求职者只把业余时间用于有价值的事，比如在施舍处做志愿者，或者教孤儿编程。

The cover letter is so open in its insincerity ( When I saw the advertisement for this job, I almost fainted with excitement ) that people are starting not to bother with it.

求职信的缺乏真诚已经到了开诚布公的地步(当我看到这份工作的招聘广告时，我几乎兴奋得晕倒了)，以至于人们变得根本懒得去读它。

At the interview stage one task facing the firm's recruiters is to winkle out the truth of what a person actually contributed to a project.

在面试阶段，公司招聘人员的一项任务是努力弄清某个人到底对项目做出了什么贡献。

Those hoary⁷ questions about a candidate's weaknesses and failures are there for a reason; no one will bring them up unprompted.

关于应聘者有何缺点和失败经历的老掉牙的问题是有存在必要的，毕竟没有人会在没有提问的情况下主动谈起这些话题。

Cognitive⁸ and behavioural tests are useful in part because they are harder for applicants to game.

认知和行为测试之所以有用，在一定程度上是因为申请者更难在这上面钻空子。

But a tendency to stretch the truth infects companies as well as applicants.

但是，歪曲事实的倾向不仅影响应聘者，也影响公司。

The typical firm will write a job description that invariably describes the work environment as fast-paced and innovative⁹, and then lays out a set of improbable requirements for the ideal candidate, someone who almost by definition does not exist.

典型的公司会写一份工作描述，工作环境一定是快节奏和充满创新氛围的，然后对理想的候选人提出一系列不可能达到的要求，符合要求的人几乎是不可能存在的。

Sometimes -- as when ads demand more years of experience in a programming language than that language has existed for -- these requirements include an ability to go back and alter the course of history.

有时(比如要求对某种编程语言的经验比该语言存在的时间还长)要达到这些要求，需要有回到过去、改写历史的能力。

Industrialised hiring processes can often reward mindless exaggeration.

工业化的招聘流程往往会奖励盲目的夸大其词。

Services that scan your resume when you are making an application mark you down if your CV does not match the keywords that appear in the original job advertisement.

如果你的简历与招聘广告中的关键字不匹配，当你申请工作时，扫描简历的机器会给你扣分。

The message is clear: to get through to the next stage, you have to contort yourself to meet corporate¹⁰ expectations.

信息很明确：为了能进入下一阶段，你必须扭曲自己，以满足公司的期望。

Substance can matter less to recruiters than form.

对招聘者来说，实质可能不如形式重要。

One software engineer says she got a 90%-plus response rate with a spoof¹¹ CV showing apparent spells at Microsoft and Instagram but also boasting, among other things, that she had increased team-bonding by organising the company potato-sack race and spread Herpes STD to 60% of intern¹² team .

一位软件工程师说，她的一份恶搞简历达到了90%以上的回复率，简历上明显地写道她在微软和Instagram工作过一段时间，但她还吹嘘说，她通过组织公司的跳麻袋比赛而增强了团队凝聚力，并将性传播的疱疹传染给了60%的实习生。

References are so prone to inaccuracy that many firms have a policy of not giving them, fearing legal action from defamed candidates or deceived employers.

推荐信非常容易失真，以至于许多公司都有不提供推荐信的规定，担心受到诽谤的求职者或被欺骗的雇主会提起法律诉讼。

Too few firms offer an accurate account of what a position actually involves.

很少有公司能准确地描述一个职位的实际工作内容。

Tracey Franklin, the chief HR officer for Moderna, a fast-growing drugmaker and an interviewee in this week's episode of Boss Class (our new podcast) is a fan of "realistic job previews" (RJPs).

特蕾西·富兰克林是一家快速发展的制药公司莫德纳的首席人力资源官，也是本周《老板课堂》（我们新推出的播客节目）的受访者，她很推崇"真实工作预览"(RJP)。

These are meant to give prospective¹³ recruits a genuine sense of the negatives and positives of the job, as well as a clear idea of the company's corporate culture.

这种预览是为了让应聘者对工作中的消极和积极方面有真实的感受，也对公司的企业文化有清晰的认识。

One effective tactic¹⁴ is to lay out, in text or video, what a typical day in the role would look like.

一种有效的办法是以文本或视频形式展示这个岗位的员工的普通一天是什么样子。

Such honesty can be its own reward.

这种诚实本身就会带来回报。

Research has long suggested that RJPs lead to lower turnover¹⁵ and higher employee satisfaction.

长期以来，研究表明，RJP可以降低员工流动性，提高员工满意度。

A paper in 2011 by David Earnest of Towson University and his co-authors concluded that favourable¹⁶ perceptions of the organisation's honesty are the best explanation for why.

2011年，汤森大学的大卫·欧内斯特与其合著者在一篇论文中得出结论，人们对诚实公司有好感是RJP达到这些效果的最佳解释。

The incentives¹⁷ on both sides of the hiring process lean naturally towards glossing¹⁸ reality.

招聘与应聘双方自然都更倾向于粉饰现实。

If candidates were to give genuinely truthful¹⁹ answers (I have a habit of making basic but calamitous²⁰ errors), many would rule themselves out of jobs.

如果应聘者必须给出完全真实的答案(我有犯基础但具灾难性错误的习惯)，那么许多人会直接放弃找工作。

And if firms were to give a warts-and-all description of themselves, many would end up deterring²¹ good applicants.

如果公司不能隐瞒自己的任何缺点，那么优秀的申请者可能会望而却步。

But a process designed to uncover the truth about job applicants would run a lot more smoothly²² if firms were also honest about themselves.

但是，如果公司自身能做到诚实，那么旨在揭示求职者真面目的招聘过程也会顺利得多。