From the author: The article was published in the collection of IPPI "Imaton" "Business Psychology"; in the magazine "HR Service and Personnel" 2004. Every head of an enterprise or company, when hiring employees, is primarily concerned with the problem of how to select reliable and competent people. Therefore, already at the stage of personnel selection for the company, protective measures are taken, such as checking the reliability and professionalism of personnel. This important issue requires the most serious and constant attention, especially in a system associated with militarized security of objects, i.e. where employees are entrusted with weapons, where the lives of other people depend on their skills and abilities. At many security companies, the personnel department and the enterprise security service are involved in the personnel selection process. And increasingly, for a comprehensive check of the reliability and competence of a candidate, companies turn to the services of specialist psychologists. A practical psychologist of an enterprise checks not only job candidates, but also working employees, thus implementing the psychological safety of the enterprise’s staffing, which includes work with:• candidates and newly hired employees;• with the personnel of the enterprise;• with the personnel reserve of the enterprise;• with resigning employees;• to identify negative trends among personnel, the socio-psychological climate, etc. First of all, persons who are employed are subject to verification to work for a company that arouses suspicion for some reason. In cases of doubt, traditional methods: questioning, conversation, studying biographical data cannot always reveal the essence of the employee, his true goals and intentions, or show the presence of such traits as honesty, decency, loyalty in relation to the company, and in the security business - to identify professional suitability (stress tolerance, readiness for emergency actions, etc.). Obviously, it is advisable to supplement such techniques with special methods of psychological examination of the individual. And it is the practicing psychologist who should carry out repeated psychodiagnostic work using a bank of professional techniques that complement each other. Of these, the basic one is the method of observing a person using the simplest psychological techniques and skills: • during a conversation, look into the eyes of the interlocutor; • listen carefully and interestedly; • ask open questions; • show self-confidence; • be favorable to the interlocutor. These techniques provide additional information about a person. Diagnostic psychologists at the present stage are alarmed by the extensive use of test methods by non-professionals, and a large number of books on the market, such as “Popular Psychological Tests,” creating the illusion of simplicity and accessibility of this knowledge, only significantly reduce the reliability of the results obtained (“ blur the result). Sometimes the purity of execution and interpretation of even the most valid and tested tests is not observed, in this case the professional observation of a psychologist, his ability to evaluate non-verbal means of communication, which are an integral part in a psychodiagnostic examination, helps. Gestures and facial expressions involuntarily give away lies. Another 3. Freud said: “He who has eyes, let him see, he who has ears, let him hear and be convinced that there is no secret that a mere mortal could hide. His lips are closed, but he blurts it out with his fingertips. Confession bursts out from every pore. Therefore, the task is to see the most intimate and unravel it.” When studying a person’s personality, a practicing psychologist uses various methods aimed at solving specific problems: • Observation - provides information about what a person is like socially; how others see him, which he himself is not aware of;• Interview - reveals how a person understands and how he evaluates upcoming activities, his work, certain events in life;• Psychological testing -diagnoses a person’s behavior in his future activities;• Studying the results of activity - shows what a person can do, what he is capable of, how he relates to the matter;• Studying personal data, spec. inspections, surveys of experts, etc. - allow you to check the reliability of the information reported by a person. For the practice of working with examined employees, not only the qualities of a person, reflected in the individual scales of a test, are important, but also the norms of professional selection: what is considered acceptable and what is not. At the same time, there is a need to focus not on average criteria, but on specific, special, optimal ones for each organization, which are determined empirically. There is no need for specialists to justify that security activities should be classified as activities in special conditions. To select applicants for work in security structures, knowledge is required: what personal, professionally important qualities a candidate should have, i.e., the correspondence of the psyche of a particular person to the specifics of the job. The so-called “golden mean” is often characterized by impersonality, so there is a need to focus on the average criteria of the norm, taking into account the specifics of activity at a particular facility. Such boundaries are determined by a simple comparison of test results of 20 -30 “best”, “average” and “worst” employees, which clearly show obvious differences and should be taken into account when selecting candidates. The basic, structural basis for the success of a security service officer (SSO) is the indicators emotional stability, self-control, insight, responsibility, motivational and mental readiness for an extreme situation. The technology we use for psychological study of candidates for service in the security business has been tested for many years in private companies in Volgograd and has proven itself well not only in the selection of candidates for employment , but also in the selection of employees for promotion, training, in working with personnel, in the psychologically competent placement of employees. The test methods used 16 PF by R. Cattell (187), G. Eysenck (form A), “Hand-test” are widely known to practicing psychologists and hardly need a detailed description. They allowed us to derive criteria for the professional suitability of a security officer. Separately, it can be emphasized that in addition to the tests, a random conversation, a specially designed questionnaire and observation are used. The recommended criteria are presented in the table. Requirement Justification Recommended psychological standards A security officer should be moderately sociable, moderately withdrawn, i.e., have an average degree of communication. A security officer should not be very sociable: such a person, most likely, does not listen or hear the other person; but he should not be unsociable: such a person usually annoys colleagues and clients with his lack of contact, isolation and seriousness. According to R. Cattell’s test, subjects with a high measure of communication on factor A (above 9 stacks) and pronounced isolation, isolation (less than 5 walls) are unsuitable in the security service. A security officer should be emotionally tense, worried about the result of his activities. A security officer should not be characterized by high emotional stability, because he is insensitive to people, events, information preceding the “emergency”; but an emotionally unstable employee can also be dangerous, because he is prone to excessive anxiety and panicking. According to G. Eysenck’s test, subjects with high emotional instability (above 14 - 15 walls) and pronounced introversion (less than 6-7 walls) are unsuitable in the security service; according to the Cattell test for factor C (emotional stability) not lower than 6 walls and not higher than 8; and factor O3 of at least 6 walls. A security officer must meet the average norms of the age and professional group of intellectual development. A security officer with a low intellectual level is unsuitable, because he is not)