Just asking is about as effective as asking a jewel thief if he stole your jewels.
Instead, try posing questions that might give you a clue about the person’s ethics (or lack of them):
- Did you ever alert your superior to an ethical issue you faced?
- Have you reviewed the ethics policy on our website?
- Is it ever acceptable to lie in the workplace?
- Have you ever taken a class in ethics?
- Could you identify an ethical dilemma you have faced and discuss how your resolved it?
- If you found out that certain corporate documents had been doctored, would you blame the person in charge? (Correct answer: find out the facts, first.)
Red flags are, for example, when the candidate seems to have exaggerated certain qualifications (e.g. “I have a recommendation letter attesting to my honesty from Abraham Lincoln”.) If a particular resumé seems inflated or unrealistic, ask for an explanation.
Good ethics are not only good corporate practice; they can also save you cold hard cash in the form of lost profits (those mysterious missing pens, stamps, and unexplained long-distance calls), productivity (when the employee takes unnecessary sick days), fines, or worse.
Identifying a lack of ethics is especially important because it is virtually impossible to teach an unethical employee to be ethical. (It’s like trying to teach a pig to sing Happy Birthday – it doesn’t work, and it only annoys the pig.)
Remember that even the most accomplished employees may not be the most ethical. In fact, some (at least on certain parts of Wall Street) might argue that the very opposite is true.
