How to Avoid Hiring A**holes

Please don’t get me wrong, because by nature I’m a very optimistic person. In fact, I believe the business world today is friendlier, more collaborative, richer in social connections, and more accepting of diversity than ever before.

But there are still a lot of people in the world who aren’t very nice, and get ahead by cheating and abusing others. In fact, the friendlier and more welcoming any society becomes, the more opportunity cheaters and jerks will have to prey on everyone else.

As technology continues to join us all more tightly, however, collaboration and teamwork are becoming ever more important to any company’s success. It’s vital today – more so than ever before – to foster a workplace environment that welcomes contrary opinions, promoting everyone’s joint success. And nothing can ruin a friendly, collaborative atmosphere as quickly as a pure, unadulterated, abusive jerk can, especially if that jerk is given any kind of rank or authority over others.

We all know the type, right? The manipulative, borderline-personality boss who publicly humiliates her subordinates. The gratuitously mean colleague who undercuts his peers to ensure they don’t compete. The political climber who is a master at taking credit when it isn’t due, blaming others when things go wrong, and lying about it to your face. 

The other day I had drinks with Stanford professor Bob Sutton, and we had a hilariously stimulating time talking about one of his recent books, The No-Asshole Rule. He told me that in terms of book sales it was his most successful, but it was extremely unsuccessful in generating speaking engagements. He said only two companies contracted for speaking engagements based on his book, one of which was Uber. (Go figure.)

Bob and I both agreed that the biggest problem with a**holes is that they degrade and destroy an organization’s culture and effectiveness, by making people defensive and insecure, undermining the trust that is essential for any organization’s smooth operation. And immediately after our meeting I ordered his book myself and read it.

Next month Bob will be releasing his new book, a sequel to The No-Asshole Rule, with helpful strategies for dealing with these a**holes when you do encounter them. But we both agreed over drinks that if you want an organization that works smoothly and effortlessly together – if you want a group of people who pitch in for each other when needed, and build on everyone’s individual strengths – then it’s more critical than ever to identify a jerk in the first place and avoid hiring them, especially if you plan to give them any managerial role at all.

So here’s my tip, which I learned years ago from a senior executive at a large consulting and services firm:

If you want to learn quickly whether a job candidate is actually an a**hole, then take them out to a nice lunch or dinner at a good, sit-down restaurant before you hire them.

That’s right. Take them out for a nice meal at a fine restaurant. Your goal, however, isn’t just to woo them for your business. Nor are you merely conversing with them about their background or their ideas. No, in addition to the conversation, what you should be observing at the restaurant is how they treat the restaurant staff. Are they warm and friendly with the waiter, or are they cold and formal? Are they perhaps even dismissive? How about with the water server, or the bus boy? Did they tip the coat-check person?

The surest sign of a jerk is lack of respect for people who have less power, from servants to subordinates. And while it may be only slightly uncomfortable in a public setting, the workplace result will likely be a debilitating morale and engagement problem.

If you don't want an a**hole to ruin your own organization, then have your a**hole detector switched on and don’t hire them in the first place.