Are your job ads attracting narcissists?

Are your job ads attracting “rule followers” or “rule benders”? If it’s the latter, that could be a problem – especially if you’re hiring for a high-compliance role — because that might mean you’re attracting narcissists.

These are the findings of a recent study out of the U.S. looking at the issue of problematic wording in job postings. Common phrases used by recruiters may, intentionally or unintentionally, lead to employees who tend to exhibit risky behaviour.

“There appears to be a general lack of awareness about how individuals who are predisposed to manage earnings enter corporate hierarchies,” says the study.

“Our evidence suggests that the people who may be least able to resist moral and ethical temptations are the ones who find the rule-bender language appearing in common accounting job postings most attractive.”

Study: rule-benders and rule-followers

So what is that language? Three researchers — Jonathan Gay assistant professor of accountancy at the University of Mississippi, Nick Seybert, associate professor of accounting at the University of Maryland, and Scott Jackson, professor of accounting at the University of Southern California — used a selection of terms from actual job postings that are characterized as describing a “rule-bender” or “rule-follower” candidate.

For example, “ambitious and self-reliant”, “thinks outside the box,” “creative and flexible” and “communicates in a tactical and persuasive manner” might appeal to the former, while “grounded and collaborative,” “thinks methodically” and “communicates in a straightforward and accurate manner” are more likely to appeal to the latter.

Through four validation studies and four experiments, the academics found that rule-benders are viewed as possessing worse managerial skills and a higher proclivity for unethical behaviour.

In addition, narcissistic job seekers are more attracted to job postings that describe the ideal candidate using rule-bender terms for general positions and senior accounting positions.

The researchers also found that rule-bender terms are preferred for higher-growth, higher-innovation firms, and when more aggressive reporting would benefit the firm.

Their results of the study “Seductive Language for Narcissists in Job Postings” were published in the academic journal Management Science.

Attracting the wrong type of candidate

The results do not mean that people who are lower in narcissistic traits are not attracted to these jobs — they're just less attracted to these jobs, says Gay, who explains that the researchers were interested in how executives, managers and accounting people will bend the rules, and often have narcissistic traits.

“The narcissists believe themselves to be creative and persuasive and that they're go-getters and they're better than their peers. And so we thought, ‘Wow, it seems like narcissists are more likely to be attracted to these type of jobs postings because this is what they think about.’”

These terms may seem harmless, and they somewhat are, he says, but they are more attractive to narcissists.

“So, you're bound to attract people with higher levels of narcissistic traits to a job posting full of these rule-bender terms,” says Gay, adding that the research looked at trait narcissism, not clinical narcissism.

Is it intentional?

In looking at the rule-bending and rule-following phrasing in job ads, a big question is whether that’s intentional by the employer or recruiter?

The researchers say it depends. One study, for example, found the recruiters were very intentional with their language, says Seybert.

“It was like, ‘Well, the company's got to report high earnings this year,’ so, it's pretty in your face, like, ‘We need an accountant who's going to push the boundaries.’”

But in another study, the description for an accounting job was entirely compliance-based, he says.

It’s a bit unclear whether it's intentional or not, agrees Gay.

“They are more likely to use these rule-bender terms in situations where it's a higher-growth company or a higher-innovation company, relative to a company that's more mature or less innovative,” he says.

“They're also more likely to use it when there's an opportunity for an accountant to kind of cook the books a little bit, manage earnings a little bit, versus just being honest.”

Narcissists at work

There is plenty of research available looking largely at the negative effect of narcissistic leaders in the workplace. These are generally people who are driven to succeed, says Gay.

“They want to achieve at all costs. They want admiration that they think they deserve because they think they're better, and they're driven by the success, and so you're more likely to get somebody that will do immoral or fall into moral and ethical temptations, if they are more narcissistic.”

Those traits can manifest in a number of ways, as a manager or worker who tries to bend the rules or falls into a trap of being solely focused on success, no matter what the cost, he says.

“Just as a caveat, that doesn't mean that every person with higher levels of narcissism, that they don't have morals and they don't have principles — a lot of these people do — but you're just more likely to do whatever it takes to succeed if you're a narcissist.”

Having a narcissist in the role of CEO or CFO, or even just managers, has its risks, according to Seybert.

These can run the gamut from using more perquisites at the firm to more aggressive accounting, more accounting restatements or having worse internal controls, he says.

“There’s even darker stuff in some of the management literature, some of the business ethics literature, where narcissistic executives engage in workplace bullying and sexual harassment... there's a bunch of potential negative consequences.”

Narcissism in leadership

Part of the problem is we are attracted to narcissists, said another U.S. academic speaking with Canadian HR Reporter.

“We like people who make grand claims and claim that they're going to save the world or ‘Make America great again.’”

Seybert does note that narcissists can do better in the early days of a role, convincing people that they’re strong leaders.

“They come across, on average, as more confident. They come across as more knowledgeable. Usually, that fades out and sometimes reverses, because people figure out that they put on a big show, but there's nothing really to back it up. I think we might be seeing some of that with Elon Musk right now.”

Seybert’s research has also shown that narcissistic CFOs may engage in a lot more persuasive activity with financial analysts to try to get them to increase their valuation of the company.

“One potential positive is they are able to get outsiders, including expert financial analysts, to have a more positive view of the company, at least in the short run,” he says.

And narcissism can be on a spectrum, so people with milder narcissistic traits may do well in sales roles, for example, he says.

“You've got to always appear confident. You've got to be ambitious. You've got to communicate tactically... anything that'll close the sale.”

But research has also shown that narcissistic CEOs and CFOs are more likely to engage in “earnings management,” says Seybert, which is a broad term for fudging the earnings or manipulating the numbers.

As an example, earnings management could entail delaying maintenance until next year, or sending out a shipment a bit early, says Gay, to make the numbers look better.

“Some of this stuff might not be the most ethical practices, but it's not necessarily illegal.”

Fixing the phrasing of job ads

Given that many employers probably aren’t looking to hire narcissists – particularly for compliance-heavy roles — HR and recruiters should carefully consider the wording of their job ads, say the two researchers.

If these job postings only have one or two of those problematic, rule-bending phrases, it's probably fine, says Seybert.

“There were some job ads that it would say, ‘We want someone who's ambitious and creative and is going to improve the complexion of the financial numbers,’ things like that… It very much implies, or it's almost just explicit, that ‘Hey, come and bend the rules.’

“Whereas if you're just like, ‘Hey, listen, you need to adhere to all the processes and procedures, report accurately, but we really would like somebody who's ambitious,’ you know what? I think that doesn't sound problematic at all.”

You want to make sure you know exactly what kind of role you're hiring for, says Gay.

“If you are somebody that's dealing with compliance in any kind of industry or with the government, and your focus is making sure that you hit all the marks and you follow the rules, and you're not creatively trying to bend the rules… then you're going to want to be careful about what terms you're putting into it for the type of people that you're attracting.”

And that includes third-party recruiters, he says.

“They're not within the company, and if they don't get a full picture of the ethical values of the position, I do think that that's when this could arise a lot, where they might have these job postings that they generically put out because they're working for a bunch of different companies.”

Layering on screening through interviews

If you want somebody who is ambitious and meets all these criteria —because they are good ones —  but won’t bend the rules or be unethical or immoral, says Gay, “you may put some extra interviewing techniques into your strategy when you're interviewing and selecting people to make sure that you're avoiding those things.”

While phrases such as “ambitious” and “persuasive” might sound appropriate for attracting someone who’s a go-getter, says Seybert, it’s about understanding how to attract someone who also “won't take advantage of other people in the organization or break rules that are there for a reason.”

He admits it’s “a balancing act” that probably requires a lot more work during the interview process, “because if you're bringing somebody in that might be really ambitious and wants to move up, then you also want to be able to somehow screen to make sure that they're ethical.”

That can include having multiple people interviewing one person, says Seybert, and using personality assessment tests that are scientifically validated in psychology.