There is a new controversy in Cincinnati, which is where I live.  Perhaps the word controversy is too strong.  But there is movement afoot on the "dissatisfied people of America" front.  Who are the?  Well if you read the news you will quickly discover that they are everyone. Let me explain... In Cincinnati a group of people who don't believe that a god exists have placed a billboard reading, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." Don't panic.  This isn't a post about whether you should believe in ...

A while back we discussed the benefits of Realistic Job Previews.  Well not everyone works in industry and hires employees.  Sometimes what we really need to do is bring in volunteers.  This is the case for churches, political campaigns, community outreach and a wide variety of other activities. As anyone who's lead volunteers knows, one of the hardest things to do is keep them motivated and committed.  Part of this challenge comes from the volunteers themselves.  They lead busy, hectic lives with wives, boyfriends, kids, friends, work etc....  Sometimes the last thing they can ...

Almost any position you apply for, whether it's for a corporation or a non-profit will include an interview.  Even most volunteer positions have some level of interview process.  This means that we all experience the interview process at least once in our life, if not many, many times. Research has said for years that the best way to conduct interviews is through a "structured interview."  A structured interview is simply one that asks the same questions to every applicant, has standardized scoring, and has questions that are job-relevant.  Unfortunately most organizations hire ...

Have you ever had a good day?  I mean a really, really good day where everything is going your way.  Only to have it ruined by one piece of bad news? If so, you are not alone.  We are predisposed to negative information.  At least that's what Psychologists tell us. We react more strongly towards it than positive news.  This is especially true if you're trying to interview for a new job or trying to build support for a new project.  Psychologists even have a name for this behavior, it's called Negative Information Bias. But why does it need to be this way?  ...

Realistic Job Previews let candidates know the  job they are entering into may not be ideal for everyone.  For instance if you are hiring for an assembly line position, you don't want to talk about the benefits of community if the job is spent sitting in isolation.  Similarly if you're hiring for a sales position, you want incoming applicants to know that it takes a lot of networking and phone calls to do the job properly (as a self-confessed introvert, that's enough to keep me away from the position!) And that's really the goal.  Realistic Job Previews want to "weed ...

Testing has been increasingly popular in employment decisions.  So much money is riding on hiring the "right" employee, companies are hesitant to jump into a decision without as much information as possible.  Which leads us to psychological testing and employment law. Employment Law is practically its own beast.  It's hard to be a generalist in this area because the law changes so frequently.  Political maneuvering, legislative updates, and lawsuits all contribute to the changing nature of employment law.  Now, thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling it may be changing again. In a highly politicized and public case, white ...

It seems every day I see someone, somewhere claiming that by studying a person's handwriting you can identify all kinds of useful information.  This information can range from whether they will be a good employee to what type of personality they have.  Handwriting, apparently, is a window to the soul.  (See the most recent case in the magazine, Real Simple.) So is this possible?  Can you determine someone's personality by their handwriting? In a word: fat chance. OK, that was two words. The idea behind Graphology, or the study of handwriting, is that our handwriting reveals something about our personality.  Graphology states ...

Psychology is a fascinating subject.  Which, I suppose, is why I've spent the better part of 15 years studying it.  Even before I began officially studying psychology I was intrigued by how the brain works.  Take my ability to write this paragraph: How does my brain process information?  How does it retrieve it?  How am I able to write these thoughts onto a computer screen while also realizing how hot it is and that my keyboard is slowly dying? The sheer amount of information the brain processes is amazing. But we rarely take time to think about that.  In fact, most of ...