September 2006
Marketing professor publishes ethics guide for job interviews
By: Mary Hamann & Dennis Brown
Recent research shows that only one in 20 corporate recruiters includes ethics inquiries when interviewing job candidates.
In addition, recruiters report that a rising number of job applicants act unethically during the interview process, such as embellishing a résumé or reneging on a job offer.
Patrick Murphy, professor of marketing and co-director of the Institute for Ethical Business Worldwide at the University of Notre Dame, has written a brief guide on ethics for the recruitment process to inform job seekers and recruiters. The guide covers the benefits of ethical work environments, includes sample questions which recruiters and job seekers can pose during an interview, and lists unethical behaviors to be avoided.
“This guide will be widely used and valued by our organization in its recruiting efforts,” said Harold Tinkler, chief ethics and compliance officer for Deloitte & Touche USA. “The clear, simple and professional approach for providing guidelines to both interviewers and interviewees will help us to more fully integrate ethical considerations into the interview process.”
The two-sided guide will be distributed to Notre Dame students as well as to recruiters through college and university career centers. It also is available online at www.ethicalbusiness.nd.edu and will be distributed more widely by the project’s co-sponsors, the fellows program of the Ethics Resource Center and the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.
Founded in 1922 and based in Washington, D.C., the Ethics Resource Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of organizational ethics through research and the measurement of ethics and compliance programs in corporations.
The Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics is an independent entity established in partnership with Business Roundtable – an association of 160 chief executive officers from leading companies. Based in Charlottesville, Va., the institute brings together leaders from business and academics to fulfill its mission to enhance the link between ethical behavior and business practice through executive education programs, practitioner-focused research, and outreach.
Notre Dame's Institute for Ethical Business Worldwide, founded in 2001, brings business leaders to campus, holds an annual ethical dimensions in research conference, and encourages dialogue among students, faculty, alumni and business executives to promote ethical business behavior.
Contact Patrick Murphy at Murphy.72@nd.edu