How the language of job postings can attract rule-bending narcissists
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Hey, I still work as a cook part-time
"So, what are you doing this weekend?"
"Well, tomorrow morning I'll be cracking eggs and placing them on a plate for six hours in exchange for a couple hundred dollars"
"Oh... my girlfriend wants to go for a bike ride..."
Personally, I like to get my exercise in a more lucrative fashion. And if all else fails, I can always make food small, make food brown, or both. Not to mention, I'll never lose sleep fearing AI will eliminate my job.
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Having been in that environment for many years, I would say most "data" is massaged. More technically, the data itself is fine, but it's how it is presented to drive a particular decision that is highly manipulated.
Very simply, people will do what they are compensated to do. Management and sales people are most guilty of these types of things because their compensation is very directly impacted by the numbers. You see it at every level, from small internal teams to public filings. It's a constant effort to find the right spin to accentuate the positive and downplay the negative.
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A couple of nights ago, I was thinking about this. Not specifically about words used for hiring, but that narcissists and sociopaths generally have a greater likelihood of making it to the top.
I also recall seeing something about how, in times of disaster, these are the types we NEED because they can make the hard decisions while others would be squeamish.
No. It's not that they're better adapted. You don't have to be a narcissist or a risk taker to be successful or to make the hard decisions. In fact, I'd say that an empathetic person should be preferred for such decisions.
Maybe it's just that there's something wrong with modern society because we actively reward such behaviors. We make excuses for and enable those who harm others to bring great benefit to themselves and maybe a few allies.
The ruthless capitalism that seems to be encouraged here in the US is probably the most glaring example. People like "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap, for example. He made people a lot of money at the expense of a lot of other people. He eventually was found to be a fraudster, yet, all these years later, we see people following in his footsteps, and we complain, but it's been normalized.
No. Just no. Humanity should NEVER be in the practice of rewarding such behavior. It is absolutely toxic.
I also recall seeing something about how, in times of disaster, these are the types we NEED because they can make the hard decisions while others would be squeamish.
No. It's not that they're better adapted. You don't have to be a narcissist or a risk taker to be successful or to make the hard decisions. In fact, I'd say that an empathetic person should be preferred for such decisions.
Maybe it's just that there's something wrong with modern society because we actively reward such behaviors. We make excuses for and enable those who harm others to bring great benefit to themselves and maybe a few allies.
The ruthless capitalism that seems to be encouraged here in the US is probably the most glaring example. People like "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap, for example. He made people a lot of money at the expense of a lot of other people. He eventually was found to be a fraudster, yet, all these years later, we see people following in his footsteps, and we complain, but it's been normalized.
No. Just no. Humanity should NEVER be in the practice of rewarding such behavior. It is absolutely toxic.
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I'm so tired of seeing the word "passionate" in job postings.
"Are you passionate about XYZ..."
Listen man, the only thing I am "passionate" about is knowing the company is not trying to screw me six ways to Sunday with shitty pay and shitty benefits, like health care insurance that fights you about practically everything (I'm looking at YOU, Aetna). I have a skill, you apparently have a need that matches (or at least mostly matches) my skill set. Maybe I can help with some of your projects. Are we a good fit? Are you paying me a just wage and benefits? Let's talk!
But the word "passionate" in job postings suggests to me you are looking for some sort of work junkie. I am not "passionate" about working 12 hour days on a salary that at first looked good on paper but once I realize how many hours I am putting in + on-call and shitty work-life balance, that the compensation actually sucks donkey balls.
"Are you passionate about XYZ..."
Listen man, the only thing I am "passionate" about is knowing the company is not trying to screw me six ways to Sunday with shitty pay and shitty benefits, like health care insurance that fights you about practically everything (I'm looking at YOU, Aetna). I have a skill, you apparently have a need that matches (or at least mostly matches) my skill set. Maybe I can help with some of your projects. Are we a good fit? Are you paying me a just wage and benefits? Let's talk!
But the word "passionate" in job postings suggests to me you are looking for some sort of work junkie. I am not "passionate" about working 12 hour days on a salary that at first looked good on paper but once I realize how many hours I am putting in + on-call and shitty work-life balance, that the compensation actually sucks donkey balls.
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There are certain politicians and charlatans that I woud not mind in the least if they were on the reciever when the "tactical communications" went through...
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Truth in job postings: "We at Tekdynomax are seeking self motivated individuals to discover where new rules, regulations and moral ethical considerations should some day be implemented. People who can find the edge cases and manipulate situations to capitilize on them. Be prepared to spend every waking hour working for us for the absolute least recompense we can manage"
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Y'know, I've often wondered: are we the most warlike ape? (Yes) What would things be like if our culture was more like those monkeys that fuck it out instead of fight things out?
(The last time an analogous situation to the one you described? I had a cashier who'd been there five years, because he literally lives across the street from the store I run, so the "we don't pay enough" didn't actually matter... And we had a conversation that, well, he was a good dude with a temper, and I'm a good dude with a temper, and we got all up in each other's faces. I'm his boss. He didn't agree with a choice I'd made, about unbanning someone -- we're in the middle of nowhere, 10 country miles from civilization -- and it almost came to blows.
I believe in second chances. And keeping a very close eye. Three month bans, not forever bans. But I'd had to revert him to cashier per our horrible "there's absolutely zero redundancies" new policy (ends up saving Discount Retailer appx 800/mo/store, but not really because we end up paying a lot of OT if I Go on vacation) and he was the one who'd banned them in the first place. They begged to come back and said "dude, I'm not generally a thief, I was drunk as fuck" which I identify with, having often been so drunk I inadvertantly shoplifted.
But IME? Once you stare each other down, and don't get in a fight, because you realize you're both willing to bend a little, it's likely you can work together better than ever.)
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You make 33 dollars an hour as a cook? I'm in the wrong business. Oh so clearly. I manage a big box Discount Retailer and if I pencil it out I make more like 26-28 after all the fire-putting-out is accounted for. You? Putting out fires, you're already there. Me? There's sometimes fires I am the only one who knows how to put out and I gotta go there because the company refuses to let people log in from home. "I gotta check this box on the computer before COB today for legal compliance" can't possibly be good. I have an assistant that just can't learn how to do it, a legacy hire who's been at the store longer than I've been living in NC, beloved by the community, so I can't get rid of her, because there's a ton of people who shop there to visit with her.
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This and many other posts boil down to wanting (understandably) clearly defined Everything.
Corpos want, understandably, to half-ass the complex process of comprehension, they want to use proxy stats, metrics voodoo, approximations and equivalents. A tech news site means you're two clicks away from people bemoaning managers who don't actually know employee productivity. They want to sub in LoC. HR wants to sub in buzzwords, credentials, school GPA.
This continues internally, where it's a pain in the ass to explicitly lay out policies and processes, not unlike a million chat rooms and message boards etc. that cop out with "Rules: Don't be a dick". Rather than write up and maintain the 18-step procedure for fixing potential widget snags, they want the "innovative" who can handle it themselves. They want independent thinkers who can Figure It Out, because it makes up for the half-assing of clearly defined Everything. We'll slap together some list of jobs responsibilities that vaguely aligns with reality but you can be sure as shit we staple OTHER DUTIES AS ASSIGNED to the bottom.
I'm not sure what the collective term is (ironically) but it's a pretty well established phenomenon, humans can't be assed to codify things because ..."thoughts" are so much easier. I want to describe a program's goals but not articulate every last edge case. I want to tell my calendar AI "find me a movie for Friday" but not sit down with it and explain my multi-dimensional priority scaling for distance, genre, snack compatibility, seating preference, etc etc etc that even I would have to sit and ponder because understanding our OWN thoughts is hard work, teasing out "What do I want for lunch" into concrete measurables and a destination. I fortunately don't do much anxiety but I bet that word immediately reminds many here of an amorphous thought that therapists slowly help to translate into more defined causality.
Everyone wants rule-followers but doesn't want to spoonfeed them. Everyone wants rule-benders to fill in the blanks but only if the blanks are filled in the right way, which I/we barely even comprehend (and that's why it was left blank). Everyone wants technology to do the thinking but it's only ever been good at calculating, the executing, of something we clearly codify first. AI might help somewhat, because one thing a glorified autocomplete can do is prompt us with popular blank fillers.
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Yeah, narcissists, sure, but also creative people. I think outside the box. I don't think I'm always right.
Sure, I'm the most handsome man who ever lived, lives now, or ever will live, but you know, that is just a coincidence.
¶ 1 not /s.
¶ 2 /ssss.
Sure, I'm the most handsome man who ever lived, lives now, or ever will live, but you know, that is just a coincidence.
¶ 1 not /s.
¶ 2 /ssss.
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To elaborate on my previous point without my self-defeating facetiousness, I don't think the dichotomy they're arguing for is necessarily accurate.
"Thinks outside the box" can mean creative (as my previous post said), but it doesn't mean "always thinks they're right" or "thinks rules are meant to be broken" or "thinks they should never face consequences."
How were confounding factors accounted for? Just the first question of many that could well be asked.
Not like I really think anyone is going to see my end-of-page-3 comments, of course.
"Thinks outside the box" can mean creative (as my previous post said), but it doesn't mean "always thinks they're right" or "thinks rules are meant to be broken" or "thinks they should never face consequences."
How were confounding factors accounted for? Just the first question of many that could well be asked.
Not like I really think anyone is going to see my end-of-page-3 comments, of course.
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Well, we didn't stare each other down before each bending a little. It was more of a he realized his little 3inch knife against my 8 inches taller than him and holding a 12inch meat cleaver was not very optimal.
BUT, I ran into him and his girlfriend months later at a pot shop and we both laughed about it while sharing a joint. Come to find out that his brother had gotten nabbed by ICE the day before our altercation, which was what he was most upset about and wanted to lash out - until he realized "your lanky gringo ass woulda fuuuuucked me up over some plates that ain't even mine!"
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What I'd like to see is a study on the proliferation of rule-breakers, aka bullies, assholes, lazy freeloaders, and corrupt pieces of shit. It feels like they're not merely tolerated but have been encouraged over the years, at all levels of an organization. I've crossed paths with far too many of this type in my time 
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That was the thrust of my not-in-any-way-joking comment on the first page here: The fish rots from the head down.What I'd like to see is a study on the proliferation of rule-breakers, aka bullies, assholes, lazy freeloaders, and corrupt pieces of shit. It feels like they're not merely tolerated but have been encouraged over the years, at all levels of an organization. I've crossed paths with far too many of this type in my time
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You're right that not all outside-the-box thinkers are narcissists, but they didn't say that everyone who matches these traits is a narcissist. They said that these traits are "linked to" (meaning "correlated with") narcissism and that the job postings with these phrases attract more narcissists than postings without them.To elaborate on my previous point without my self-defeating facetiousness, I don't think the dichotomy they're arguing for is necessarily accurate.
"Thinks outside the box" can mean creative (as my previous post said), but it doesn't mean "always thinks they're right" or "thinks rules are meant to be broken" or "thinks they should never face consequences."
How were confounding factors accounted for? Just the first question of many that could well be asked.
Not like I really think anyone is going to see my end-of-page-3 comments, of course.
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Fuck no, and maybe.
When I say "six hours" that's--y'know--cooking*. There's set-up and tear down involved. Which is little more involved that waking up a computer when you come in, then shutting it down for the weekend.
*of course that number is the minimum, as on the so rare occasion eight people walk in three minutes before service ends and take 40 minutes to finally order. Regardless, it's not the kind of job where you walk out at 4:59
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One look at Pol Potty, Reverse Von Braun, and the rest of the new Kmart Rouge as they raze the USA into the ground should tell you the value of narcissists in business or anywhere else there are levers of power.
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I once rolled my eyes at an advertisement for a bar tender, max age 18, with 2+ years experience.
Here in Australia, you cannot bar tend unless you are over 18…
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There's a Portuguese saying: "Deus perdoa, eu não."
It translates to: "God forgives, I don't".
I quite like that one.
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One large (over 100,000 employees at one time) tech company I worked for was sending interviewees to us that were massively underqualified for the technical position they were applying for. We asked HR why they were sending these specific applicants, and their rather shocking reply was that they selected applicants on their personality, not their expertise. That company has greatly declined from being a technical leader to a seemingly perpetual loser. Fortunately, I had left before their final downfall. It didn't help that the two top people were also quite incompetent, with one of them escaping with over $100M in his golden parachute.
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As someone looking for an IT job in Europe right now, recruitment is all over the place. I'm not sure anyone really knows what they are doing. Most job offer string words together that don't add up to any actual meaning and it's impossible to know exactly what the position is supposed to be like other than the absolute basics (and even then). Most companies don't even have a real public presence since a lot of it is B2B. It seems like everyone is looking for senior or experienced. I have 15 years behind me but I really feel for beginners. Personally I don't even bother anymore. I scan for keywords to know if I could possibly do the job and then change the company name in my generic cover letter. It does get me to interviews so...
Also some time ago I got hired following 3 interviews (4 if I count the initial recruiter phone call). One of them was going through the results of a deep personality test, whose results were pretty accurate. They fired me 6 weeks later (under my trial period) for the reason "my personality doesn't fit in the team". I got zero feedback whatsoever underway. Could just have been an excuse of course but they could have found a better one.
Also some time ago I got hired following 3 interviews (4 if I count the initial recruiter phone call). One of them was going through the results of a deep personality test, whose results were pretty accurate. They fired me 6 weeks later (under my trial period) for the reason "my personality doesn't fit in the team". I got zero feedback whatsoever underway. Could just have been an excuse of course but they could have found a better one.
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What’s the problem? As a selection strategy it clearly worked great when they hired for HR! /s
…
What’s ridiculous about this picture is that a tech company that has 100K employees could trivially second a techie to the HR dept for the purposes of filtering trash. Identify some geeks who can string a sentence together and rotate them through, spreading domain info and insight. (And vice-versa.) Perhaps automate their Excels on the side and you’ve got BFFs before you know it!
The great corporate obsession with erecting insular silos, each filled with hyperfocused savant idiots with another idiot on top is, I suspect, a work of narcissists themselves. Keeping prey divided, isolated, and weak is a time-tested tactic of domestic abusers everywhere; so much easier to feed on! As a business strategy it is clearly bad for the future health of the company… but by the time the shareholders are crying into their penny stocks the arch-manipulators who did it have already flown, golden-parachuted themselves to their new hunting grounds.
The fix I’d propose is hiring more generalists: people with knowledge of how more than one thing works, and aren’t afraid to get down and dirty in the trenches when needed, are much better skilled to find and flag all the cross-system defects that one-trick ultra-specialists can’t see. The vampires wouldn’t like that though. Problem-solvers with pointy sticks!
Peter Robison's “Flying Blind” is very good. Everyone should read it.
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Sure, but sometimes there's a disconnect between the top and below. I did time at a smallish company whose founder/owner was a decent person but originally an inventor not a manager. My department manager and my direct report were red-hat racists who demonstrated an aptitude for knowing exactly how much they could get away with before getting in trouble. Turnover was a number too high to believe and productivity in the toilet. But the owner trusted his underlings and believed their excuses and blame-gaming (it's HR's fault, the placement agency is no good, that employee was bad in whatever way, etc).
When my boss projected his malignant behavior onto me and my job was threatened, I walked. I knew by then the owner was blind or bamboozled. The bar for harassment claims is just too fucking high.
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In fields outside accounting/law, rules have gradations, particularly where life safety is concerned. As a physician/software engineer, there are rules that when broken kill people, and then silly compliance rules. But more than bending rules is understanding their rationale, and assuming they were written in blood. To me the narcissistic behavior is bending rules you don’t understand the rationale for, just because they seem illogical. Like in submersible construction, say as an example, or designing a flight envelope protection to emulate prior models without worrying about failure modes. The reverse of blind adherence to rules again without understanding to me can be equally egregious and harmful.
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That is not how narcissism works. Narcissism doesn’t care.
A narcissist will break any rule, any time it serves their own personal interest to do so.
…
The error you make is projecting your Self onto them. Your wonderful, sophisticated, empowering theory of mind—experience and insight you’ve spent your whole life developing and using to better explain human thoughts and behavior in your own self and others—is ultimately based on You. So you try to understand their motivations based on “What would I do?”—and, when your observation confounds your well-tested predictions, rather than see your calculation is wrong you work all the harder to make it fit in.
Your mental model explains your fellow humans. It simply does not work on people who are, at heart, not human. Not fully. You need to lay that work aside and start over again, constructing a completely new model from the ground-up that does accurately model everything you’re hearing and seeing. Even as you don’t want to believe it.
A narcissist is a predator, pursuing its food. Food is you. That’s it. Don’t overthink it.
Oh, and there’s about 70 million in the US today. Good luck.
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Almost the biggest problem large corporations trying to make money from tackling difficult problems have is aligning the individual's motivation with that of the company. It was always amusing to watch the BS artists quickly realize that the managers easily distracted by shiny objects were the route to quick career advancement while contributing very little in the way of actually moving the company forward on its goals and requirements. You get what you incentivize as even as big a narcissist as Jack Welch finally realized.
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This seems a bit obvious, given that correlation does not mean causation. If you need creative people, and creative people are correlated with narcissists, what are you supposed to do?
Of course accountancy doesn't need overly creative people. I could have told you that for free. I don't see why it's better to say they are also narcissistic, if you didn't need them anyway.
Of course accountancy doesn't need overly creative people. I could have told you that for free. I don't see why it's better to say they are also narcissistic, if you didn't need them anyway.
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You may believe this, but the reality is: companies hire the candidate which will get the job done at the lowest possible cost. Which generally means contractor. Often H1-B.
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Writing with a tactical ink pen on tactical paper, I think.
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As a Narcissist I find this article a little offensive. Imagine if it were instead about attracting disabled people. Or women. Or people of color. But instead you are saying you are attracting Narcissists and suddenly that makes this kind of rhetoric okay?
Look behavior is behavior. I'm a vulnerable Narcissist who is also codependent so I LIKE rules and following them (when they make sense).
I am BOTH a rule-follower AND a person who tries to persuade others to implement innovative processes to improve outcomes.
The problem is when Narcissists become MALIGNANT. Also, NPD is different from the rest of the spectrum and it's the only kind accepted as a real mental disorder.
But malignant behavior just means you have APD and a sociopath. That has nothing to do with whether you are a Narcissist or not.
Be aware of if you are hiring a Narcissist but be alarmed if you are hiring a sociopath because that is very dangerous. The definition is that they have no CONSCIENCE. Whereas a Narcissist just has no empathy. Which creates problems but also creates solutions.
Narcissists can be very good at manipulating people. If they are doing this in a non-toxic way (using psychological triggers to get people to do things that make them happier and more productive) there is no problem. If they are very good at selling because they "conning" people into purchasing things that are helpful to them, GREAT! It's when people are manipulated into toxic behavior and people are conned into purchasing snake oil that there's a problem.
Remember, Steve Jobs had to convince you that smart phones were wonderful before they could become wonderful.
Look behavior is behavior. I'm a vulnerable Narcissist who is also codependent so I LIKE rules and following them (when they make sense).
I am BOTH a rule-follower AND a person who tries to persuade others to implement innovative processes to improve outcomes.
The problem is when Narcissists become MALIGNANT. Also, NPD is different from the rest of the spectrum and it's the only kind accepted as a real mental disorder.
But malignant behavior just means you have APD and a sociopath. That has nothing to do with whether you are a Narcissist or not.
Be aware of if you are hiring a Narcissist but be alarmed if you are hiring a sociopath because that is very dangerous. The definition is that they have no CONSCIENCE. Whereas a Narcissist just has no empathy. Which creates problems but also creates solutions.
Narcissists can be very good at manipulating people. If they are doing this in a non-toxic way (using psychological triggers to get people to do things that make them happier and more productive) there is no problem. If they are very good at selling because they "conning" people into purchasing things that are helpful to them, GREAT! It's when people are manipulated into toxic behavior and people are conned into purchasing snake oil that there's a problem.
Remember, Steve Jobs had to convince you that smart phones were wonderful before they could become wonderful.
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Getting bent out of shape when the preferred path isn't taken is often the only thing standing between your company and disaster. When you're headed off a cliff anyone trying to use the brakes is helpful.
Many Narcissists are also perfectionists. They will undermine policies that are counterproductive.
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This can work the opposite way. You can be a narcissist perfectionist in an environment full of slackers where the rule of majority is to do things with no regard for laws and dangerously. Then you, (especially if you are a "narcissist hero" type) ride in on your white horse and try to save everyone, imposing precautions everywhere.
Every seen a person who INSISTS everyone wear their seatbelt, drive the speed limit, put away their phone, stop at the crosswalk and train crossing even though there seems to be no threat? Narcissist/perfectionist hero.
They have no empathy so they don't understand or care why you are not being safe and following the rules. In their mind there is ZERO circumstances where their best practices should not be obeyed by everyone.
Seems like a lot of people in this thread are confusing Narcissists with sociopath/malignant narcissist. They are very very different.
There's a whole bunch of different classifications of narcissists. The kind most people are familiar with are grand narcissists like Trump and Elon, and malignant Narcissists from crime dramas.
The most dangerous kind is actually a Covert Narcissist, because they act humble and harmless, sweet and innocent, and they will do ANYTHING to get their way. If they are malignant they are the femme fatales from your Sam Spade mysteries. Wonderly from The Maltese Falcon. They will act like an innocent victim and get their minions to eliminate everyone in their way. This is the kind most often called "evil". You can watch a ton of videos about them on youtube from psychologists if you want to learn more.
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As is addressed in the scholarly article cited in this pop article.
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If you are in my car, we aren't moving until you put on your seatbelt. Full stop. We just aren't. Exactly the speed limit? No, I match traffic (which was one hell of a transition from Surry to SD -- the 15 is just wowza in comparison to SR52 between Winston and Mayberry) cross a crosswalk without a little blinking man? Sure. Don't look both ways? Hell no, hell to the no.
I've been accused of having narcissistic traits, but mostly by people I've pissed off via perfectionism and refusal to compromise on things that actually matter. But I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong, which is all too frequent. It happens less as I get older, but only because I make sure I only have to learn the same lesson one time. (I'm 47 with about 20 years of experience and 26 years of job history -- that "the same year of experience 20 times" thing hit pretty hard, so I try really hard not to.
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This counter iframe (that I assume was supposed to be unnoticeable), is causing a lot of weird blank space.
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