Telling porkies on CVs and at interview is on the rise.
As Australia's job scene gets tighter and tougher, applicants' lies get more creative. Like the CV that referred to a six-month period in which the candidate had been on holiday by the sea. This was true, but only if you call Sydney's Long Bay Gaol a seaside resort.
"He didn't get the job," recalls First Advantage managing director Peter Stackpole. "But at the same time, he didn't go onto a register of liars. There is no applicants' blacklist, unfortunately."
Lying about skills and experience in job interviews is standard practice for many applicants in Australia - industry analysts say the figure is 35per cent and rising. Dishonest applicants figure if the lies work they might get the job; if they don't, they lose nothing.
So what should companies do to make sure their hires aren't liars? "Horses for courses - use a specialist background screening company," Mr Stackpole advises. But then he would say that, wouldn't he?
Steven Van Aperen of SVA Training and Australian Polygraph Services says the usual lies are about length of service, positions held, pay and reasons for leaving.
"That's where people like me come in," he says. "A typical case would be a one-on-one training session with a new HR manager, showing him/her how to recognise lying and deception in employees and candidates.
"That could last three days. At the end of it, the HR person will have added considerable value to his or her function in the company."
Recruiters and senior management can tell much about an applicant by watching for signs of discomfort with certain questions.
One ploy is to ask a series of relatively straightforward questions, which the applicant might answer calmly. Then watch the reaction to a tougher question.
Candidates will lie about their roles and responsibilities in previous jobs: if they use "we" rather than "I", this could imply they were just junior members of a team, or maybe not even that.
Today's workplace is more carefully structured to spot lies and half-truths, and personnel consultants are increasingly focused on detecting when applicants might be telling nothing but the truth - but maybe not the whole truth.
Darryl Calderwood of Calderwood Print Recruitment has been hiring for the printing industry for more than 20 years and says this kind of sector specialisation is a good firewall against deception.
"I generally know where my applicants have been and who they have worked for. If they are unknown we can usually track down any inconsistencies in their stories pretty quickly.
"Most recruiters are more aware of checking credentials than in the past. In former years, if you had someone who you believed could do the job, you simply put them forward.
"A lot more checking goes on these days. Times are tough and employers can't afford to hire someone who has lied at the interview and will continue to lie and possibly defraud on the job."
Recruiters agree most applicants do not directly lie about previous positions, but will conceal jobs that have been failures or where they have been fired. So, although they have told the truth, they haven't told the whole story.
A common ploy is to extend the dates of other jobs to cover an embarrassing time gap. Depending on the position, recruiters generally check with previous employers for up to 10years about the position the applicant held and how long they were with the company. If the dates don't tally, alarm bells should sound.
Some applicants embellish their previous positions, perhaps claiming to have been a production manager or project manager when in fact they may have only been a supervisor of a specific division.
Others claim numerous postgraduate degrees or diplomas when they may have only attended a one-day seminar. These can be difficult to verify, especially if applicants are from overseas, but skilled recruiters or HR people will ask to see evidence of their formal qualifications - and check it is not a dodgy internet "college".
At some stage in their working lives, many people land a job they hate. They might have had a personality clash; perhaps the role turned out to be not what was advertised - and they leave. The temptation is to wipe the experience from the record.
Wrong - it's still better to show this job on their CV, perhaps with just a brief outline of the position. If they are candid about what happened, or why they left, most prospective employers will understand, especially if the applicant has a good history with other companies.
"Applicants should keep it simple," Mr Calderwood says. "If a job they've had is not relevant to the position they're seeking, I usually advise them to show the dates as a single entry explanation. Perhaps:
'Out of industry. Shell, Coles.'
"But there's no perfect system, particularly in the absence of a mandatory, scientific, lie-detector test. And that's not going to happen.
"We've all heard some alarming stories about people winning jobs way beyond their qualifications and skills.
"Many liars are extremely convincing and impressive at the interview. Inevitably, they get found out sooner or later, but I'm sure most employers would rather head them off at the pass, in the first place."
Tips for interviewers
- Listen for a change in tense when someone answers a question. When applicants swap from past to present tense, it may indicate they are embellishing the truth.
- Watch for facial reactions - people's faces will often but not always become tense when they lie.
- Watch for what people don't say, as well as what they do.
- If a junior applicant claims to have been on a high salary, grill him or her; it's probably a porky.
- With offshore hires, write an employment contract conditional on thorough checks, which could take several weeks.
- Be happy when a dubious applicant makes a quick exit. This is known as deselection - and the candidate becomes someone else's problem.
