CVs – what do people lie about?
It’s a bit of an old joke to say that people lie on their CV but it’s one with more than a grain of truth as estimates of CV fraud top out at around 65%.
So what do people falsely claim in their CVs?
Qualifications – easy one really. People claim to have a degree when they don’t or inflate their marks thinking that once they are in the door then their natural gifts will show that they should have the job anyway.
Job titles – sometimes these can be embellished such as making an assistant project lead into a project lead and sometimes they can be a downright untruth like pretending to be the CEO of a company that they never worked at.
Lengthening a job duration – it’s an often repeated (and wrong) piece of wisdom that a short duration in a job is a bad thing so people will pretend that they’ve done something for longer than they actually have. Sometimes this is to give them more experience than they really have or sometimes it’s...
Hiding a gap between jobs – It’s a lucky person who hasn’t been unemployed, especially given the economic times we’ve just been through. Employers nowadays really don’t care if you’ve been out of work for a while, especially if you decided to go travelling or did charity work or started a business that ultimately failed. What they do mind is when you lie about it.
Pretending to be in the military – some employers really like those with time spent in the services so some job seekers think it is OK to simply pretend that they were in the SAS or were a demolition expert.
Increasing responsibilities – changing the number of people managed from 10 to 20 or inflating the budget they were responsible for from €5m to €30m. In most cases, it’s seen as a harmless white lie. It’s also often pointless as it’s easily checked and the difference is immaterial in the hiring decision anyway.
Changing the reason for leaving a job – again a fairly obvious, but easily discovered lie. People pretend they left voluntarily when they were sacked. We’ve even seen people who pretend that they weren’t made redundant as if redundancy were something to be ashamed of!
Falsely claiming achievements – not just bigging up what they actually did but saying they achieved something that they weren’t even involved in! Given the connected world, we live in it’s a pretty dumb thing to do and something that is certain to be found out.
Claiming skills they don’t have –again assuming that their winning personality will see them through the fact that they claimed to have C++ coding skills when they don’t even know what it means.
Providing false references – probably the worst from a moral point of view, people coerce their friends and family into pretending that they are a former employer and providing a reference for them. Not only is this committing a moral (and in some parts of the world legal) offence but also getting their loved ones to do the same.
Pretending not to have started a business – or pretending to have started one! Some people think that starting a business that fails is a really bad thing. Ironically not only do they not realise that most start-ups fail to make it to five years but it also shows that they have an entrepreneurial spirit but also that they have some commercial awareness. Some will pretend to have started one just for the kudos.
The ironic thing is that in a recent survey by CareerBuilder hiring managers reported spotting untruths on CVs in 58% of cases, so often the candidate isn’t getting away with it anyway.
The best advice for candidates is to be truthful. It’s much better to explain things truthfully as it shows a level of self-awareness and honesty that potential employers will value.
For employers, it’s important to recognise that, although most of the false statements on a CV won’t be particularly material some may well be and if you are in any doubt about the honesty of a candidate then it’s best to be sure.
There are various services that will help check CV details but the simplest can be just to make the effort to get verified references, check certificates where appropriate and even just to scan social media.
It is FAR better - and simpler - to check BEFORE hiring than to try to deal with an employee recruited on the basis of false claims
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