My firm is looking to hire a compliance officer. Essentially, he or she will be responsible for monitoring the firm's compliance with securities regulations in Hong Kong and the Philippines. Surprisingly, most of the applicants are practicing attorneys.

I have interviewed five applicants, all of them lawyers. I am not an expert, but I am a lawyer too.

So when they say, "I am extremely adept at all manner of office organization," I think what they mean is, "I have used Microsoft Office."

Or when they say, "I take pride in my work," what they are actually telling me is, "I blame others for my mistakes."

Or the statement "I am highly motivated to succeed" actually means "The minute I find a better job, I'm outta here."

What I did not know was that the applicants were sizing me up too. I interviewed a female lawyer who used to work for a very close friend of mine. During the interview, I remarked that I had been trying to convince her former boss to join our firm. She responded by increasing her asking salary by fifty percent. She reasoned that if the firm could afford her former boss' salary, then giving her a fifty percent increase would not be a problem.

Although dumbfounded, I still managed to tell her that I can disregard the fact that her former boss was more qualified, or that her asking salary was not commensurate to the functions she will be performing. However, I cannot ignore the fact that the salary she was asking for was not based on her assessment of how much she was worth, but on her estimate of how much her former boss is earning.

With that, I thanked her for her time and walked out of the room.