[ghurtado]

I would take it further and say that the more light we bring to this subject, the less it becomes the exclusive domain of snake oil salesmen and the "sales tips 101" type books, and the more inoculated the general public becomes to manipulation.

[overfeed]

Why dontou consider it "manipulation"? Would you consider what goes into you resume, or performance/promotion packet "manipulation"? In every interaction there are spoken and unspoken rules, and those who excel tend to be those who can understand the subtext and express themselves effectively.

[zozbot234]

It depends, of course. Some people might fill their resume with outright BS, and this would be widely regarded as manipulative.

[mewpmewp2]

Depends how you define outright BS. I bet most people at least cherrypick the best data points amongst thousands of possible, giving a look that doesn't really represent them as a whole. And then they omit some undesirable things. Similar to how people on social media will only post their best moments, giving inaccurate representation of their lives and themselves while overall causing others to feel like they are missing out, etc.

So here is the skill of being able to cherrypick data to give the best representation of yourself as opposed to true average honest overview of oneself. Then the skill of avoiding answering questions you don't want to answer to by answering by talking about what you want to talk about (think politicians).

Same is with real life interactions. Among 1000s of things you could say or do there is always some that are more effective than others in reaching a certain goal, whether it is getting a job, making a sale, convincing someone, making a friend or whatever.

Is it manipulative only if you make up something or if you are able to get people to do what you want by being able to cherrypick the most convincing ideas, arguments, facts etc.

[wybiral]

If they have thousands of examples to cherry pick from... That's a signal of experience. So it's not entirely manipulation. If you can pick from your experience and find the best examples and you have several... You have experience.

[mewpmewp2]

It really depends on the topic. You can do a lot by cherrypicking and omitting stuff. Simple example, I can talk about all the stock trades where I hit big and leave an impression that I am super good with picking the right stocks, but not talk about my losses. This is super obvious example, but in real life there is infinite nuance to all of it. The stories I choose to tell and stories that I choose to leave out.

[wybiral]

But in the context of job interviews.. It applies. But also that applies in trading, if you have a bunch of experience winning or losing, that's useful experience and I want your input on my team. The fact that you cherry picked is built into the evaluation. You have experience. Whether or not you have some innate talent for it is aside. I care about your experience.

[DiskoHexyl]

...and the more low-trust becomes the society, as if it's not already the case in plenty of places.

It's no coincidence that people always judged and shunned such overt manipulators, as well as tried to downplay the underlying mechanisms of manipulation in general (outside of the sales types, which are often looked upon as slimy and not deserving of trust).

A low-trust society is not fun a place to live in