4 Common Resume Lies and Ways to Spot Them

A professional writer and passionate blogger, Sampurna has been lending her expertise to the online world by penning articles, guest posts and blogs on career, business and employment for a quite some time now. She also an avid reader; loves travelling and photography.

As a recruitment manager, you are all set to hire candidates who are qualified and suitable enough for the job role. While you would look for the required qualifications and work experience, you should also look for honesty in the process of hiring candidates.

It might come as a surprise to many, but several jobseekers tend to lie or fake it up on their resume. Yes. It is a fact. From foolish fibs to full-on-fraud, lying on resumes is one of the most ways job seekers intend to stretch the truth.

Inflating a resume with the help of all-too-familiar resume language is likely harmless. However, falsifying a resume is entirely different. Therefore, it is a sincere advice for recruiters to be extra cautious while they intend to hire candidates for vacant job positions.

Sometimes, as a business owner, you would probably assume that whatever a jobseeker writes on his or her resume happens to be true. But that might not be the best idea. Explained below are a few situations that might arise while looking to hire candidates – and if you do see them, it is a red flag that required further investigation.

Take a look at the following paragraphs:

#1. The graduating school sounds somewhat iffy

There are a many schools and educational institutes that are not accredited by government bodies. In many cases, some institutes claiming to offer educational certificates turn out to be fake ones and often give out fake degrees to students. This is why recruiters have to pretty much cautious while interviewing candidates. As a recruiter, if you find the name of the instate somewhat fishy and you intend to doubt its credentials especially coming from the candidate (vouching for the institute way too much) be aware that he or she must be cooking up a story surrounding it.

#2. Previous company name is absolutely unknown

Sometimes, in a pledge to take up a job, candidates often end up doing all sorts of things that can be absolutely unimaginable. They can even go up to length of faking a company as well. Yes. In a given situation, while hiring candidates and asking questions about the previous employer, if you think that you have never ever heard about the company, chances are that the candidate is simply faking it up. It is better to do some research work before you begin with the interview process. Avoid calling at the phone number cited in reference. Instead, look up the internet and call up the company and speak to the HR person directly. Cases have been reported where the candidate asked a friend to pose as a past supervisor.

#3. Candidates’ self-acclamations seem to far-fetched

It is a common attempt to focus on acclamations while recruiters hire candidates. But, in the process if you find that the accomplishments claimed by the candidate to be a little too far-fetched – that is little too many and a way too much, then you must understand that there is something wrong. Too many phrases such as – “youngest, only one, world class leader, first person to be” can turn out to be dubious. So, if you sense something fishy in the information provided, do remember to cross question the candidate.

#4. Overinflated job titles

In another instances, candidates also often mislead in terms of job titles assigned to them. Many candidates tend to mislead in terms of job title. They intentionally over-inflate job titles only in order to get a better job position. As an employer, while you hire candidates, it’s your job to know what to ask and how to ask interview questions. The moment you sense something fishy, tend to dig a little more and ask more technical questions related to the job profile and title. If you notice that the candidate is unable to come up with a clear answer, then you would know that they are faking it up completely.

Resume lies are quite common and there have been numerous cases where candidates have been caught faking it up at interviews. However, there are times when some candidates can be truly smart in terms of fabricating facts. In such cases, it is completely on the employer to opt for a thorough background check of the candidates before making a final decision.