Your mother may have told you not to lie, but evidently some of the people sending out resumes never got that good advice. Several surveys indicate that lots of people lie when they apply for a job.
One screening service used by employers reports that in 2006, 41 percent of their background checks turned up a discrepancy between what the applicant provided and what the reference reported. Another report, by a different company, found “major misstatements” on 42 percent of the resumes.
More than half the hiring managers polled by CareerBuilder said they found a lie on an application. Of course, only 5 percent of the applicants admitted to falsifying information, though, in another survey, about half admitted to “resume padding.”
If those figures are accurate, then almost half the resumes you receive will have factual errors on them. That’s reason enough to check references and backgrounds.
Applicants lie about a lot of things. According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the most common “fibs” were the following.
- Inflated titles
- Inaccurate dates to cover up job hopping or gaps in employment
- Partially finished degrees presented as completed
- Inflated education or “purchased” degrees that do not mean anything
- Inflated salaries
- Inflated accomplishments
- Out and out lies about specific roles and duties
The bottom line is that applicants fib a lot. Many of them may not understand the difference between “presenting themselves in the best light” and lying. But that’s no excuse.
And some are hiding something serious they don’t want you to know about, like a criminal record. They’re counting on you not checking. One background check firm found that five percent of the people they checked out had a criminal record of some kind within the previous seven years.
Remember that you owe it to your company and the people who work for you to provide a safe workplace with people who are honest and can pull their weight. That’s why you check references. That’s why you do criminal background checks.