Interview Questions – ‘Is it acceptable to lie in your job?’

Interview Questions – ‘Is it acceptable to lie in your job?’

Off By Ed Hanna

For Service-leavers who haven’t got recent interview experience, the prospect can seem daunting. Here, we dissect another of the more common but no less difficult interview questions so that you can show your best side to interviewers and land your next post-Services role.

‘Is it acceptable to lie in your job?’

Play a straight bat
One immediate view would be to admit that we’re all human and that sometimes, that means making compromises with the truth in order to get on. That said, the truth is the baseline of professional integrity. Besides which, lying, if discovered, can lead you into a worse situation than the lie was designed to solve. 

Confidence
This is a character question, perhaps more about how you respond, than the response itself. In other words, it’s often asked just to see how you behave under pressure. Ideally, however you decide to answer (any interview question) you’ll deliver a confident, positive response. 

This question can make you wriggle slightly. You need to be cool, calm and certain in your answer.

Aspirations
Even though we all know that people tell lies, we should aspire to be better than that. Lying should never be regarded as a professional skill. 

Nuance
We can start to negotiate with the truth and introduce certain levels of lying but this can get complicated and lead us into a tangle. It really isn’t worth it.

Assumptions
Just because the question has been asked, does not mean that the organisation involved is trying to establish whether they can rely on you to lie for them.

Values
This is a question about character and values. While others might need to lie to get ahead, you aren’t one of them. Even if you know you can get away with a lie, it’s still a lie – and nobody wants to hire or work with a liar.