CV after CV after CV. You apply and apply. Following an exhaustive labourious job search, you finally land an interview at one of your target firms.
Then, once the initial enthusiasm subsides, you get to work and spend hours preparing for the interview. You read about the company, go through their social media accounts, investigate public disclosures about them, and finally check through your networks to ask pre-interview questions about the firm to your connections.
Then the big day comes. You try to calm your nerves as you patiently wait to be called into the conference room for the job panel. The human resources manager kicks off the interview with the typical question asking you to tell them a bit about yourself and why you want the position. Everything seems normal and progressing as expected.
They insult their own team members who are not even in the room. They neglect to even ask you a question about yourself. Stunned, you just sit and listen to their performance and wonder what is actually going on.
Well, congratulations. You just got hit with a show from a potential supervisor with dark personality traits. Whether you are a new graduate straight from university or you are a seasoned long-serving professional, it stands as crucially important to screen your would-be manager while seeking a new position for the dreaded dark traits.
We often hear about the five dimensions of personality utilised by psychologists and managers around the world to enhance self-knowledge, teamwork, and life satisfaction. But there also exist a dark triad of negative personality traits that are so dismal that they often get left out of classrooms and boardrooms alike as they capture manipulative and exploitative tendencies.
Social scientists Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams developed the concepts of the dark personality traits over two decades ago and therapists globally lookout for these in their patients.
However, executives, human resources managers, and business school professors often overlook these salient negative sides of personalities.
The dark three
The dark three negative personality traits include narcissism where someone has a sense of superiority, entitlement, and feeling uncommonly grand. Next, Machiavellianism involves manipulative behaviours focused on their own self-interest and personal gain.
Finally, psychopathy entails impulsivity, complete lack of empathy for others or remorse for their own actions or events in the news that you can see through general callousness. These traits are often noticed plainly in certain global political leaders.
Position seekers should use the interview as a time to screen their prospective supervisors and managers for these dark traits. These negative aspects in one’s possible boss do not disappear during a job interview. So, stay alert.
First, see if they dominate the conversation and rarely ask about you or your qualifications. Second, do all their stories position them as the smartest person in the room? Third, do they talk about their teams with contempt or blame? Fourth, watch how they treat others before, during, or after the interview. Fifth, listen to how they talk about people who are not even in the room. Sixth, does your interview even end up being about you at all?
Do not get fooled if they seem charming. Charm can feel real. But you must see through it and look for the above red flags. If you notice any three of the above red flags, then run for the hills. Things will go badly in your job working for that manager.
Utilise looking out for the six red flags not only in job interviews. Also incorporate them if in your work there has been a change of ownership or change of one of your bosses and someone new comes in.
Again, if you notice three or more of those red flags, your work life will not improve and you need to leave as quickly as possible. Start your job search all over again while you still have your sanity. Go. Find the door.
Worried that you might possess one or more of the dark triad personality traits yourself? Then go online and take a quick two-minute self-assessment at openpsychometrics.org/tests/SD3/ and see if you have any of the negative three personality traits.