Last month, ABCNews.com was seeking stories from hiring managers and recruiters who experienced candidates who fibbed on their resumes, bios, portfolios, etc., for an article that was being written. Whether it’s extreme or humorous, the assignment was sure to find a wealth of anecdotes about catching “faked resumes and concocted credentials.” TriNet’s PR team chatted with two of our experts to hear their recruiting tales. Although our stories didn’t make the finished piece, they’re worth sharing here, along with a few best-practice tips that hiring managers can employ to try to minimize meeting a candidate who lies.

Robert Segovia is a senior talent acquisition manager in our HR department, i.e. he helps hire our internal colleagues. He pointed out that the chances of a candidate getting caught fibbing on their resume is much higher, due to the amount of data available to savvy recruiters who want to ensure they are getting what they’re reading on paper. Recruiters heavily leverage the Internet, checking out social media and networking sites, putting the odds in favor of a candidate getting caught exaggerating.

So, where is the line drawn between typical job application puffery and outright fibbing? By definition, a resume is a bragging sheet about a candidate’s accomplishments and purposely excludes any failures. It’s incumbent upon recruiters and hiring managers to “peel back the onion a couple layers to understand what candidates can actually do.” Robert added he would not consider bragging a fib but takes exception when the facts of the resume are at stake, i.e. job titles, dates of employment, certificates, degrees, etc.

Lee-Anne Farley is one of our senior Human Capital Consultants, and leads a group that oversees our Talent Acquisition service. Her role focuses more on helping our clients find top talent for their open positions. In a past recruiting position, she experienced the following:

As a recruiter for a media and entertainment company searching for an HR manager position, I came across a resume that I thought it seemed oddly familiar the further I dove into reading it. I put it aside for awhile, and when I came back to it, it dawned on me that I was actually looking at my own resume! The names and contact details had changed, but significant sections, such as education, experience and professional memberships, were exactly the same as a version of my resume from a few years previous. With a little research, I discovered the applicant and I had worked at the same company a few years back. She obviously helped herself to my details so it wasn’t a surprise that she hung up on me when I called to ‘further discuss the opportunity’ and casually mentioned that our careers had crossed paths.

Although Lee-Anne was subtle in her approach to pointing out the caught fib, Robert emphasizes that recruiters don’t hesitate to offer the opportunity for the candidate to clarify why the resume and research differ on certain facts. Some applicants enhance the lie with additional tall tales, while others do come clean. Recruiters actually face certain candidates who are bold enough to ask if the lie will affect their chances of being hired. As the ABCNews.com article mentions, most recruiters can’t drop the candidate fast enough once a lie is detected.

The above example is extreme but these types of situations clearly do happen. And they may be happening more often given our current economic climate, as high unemployment creates a larger-than-normal job applicant pool that’s competing for limited positions. It’s fair to say that most recruiters expect to have to check out the actual resume details of experience and knowledge.  However, it can be difficult to know when a candidate is exaggerating or telling outright lies, so how does a recruiter check this?  There are a few practical steps that a hiring manager can employ to separate flawed candidates from true candidates. And it’s more than developing “a sixth sense for detecting baloney” as one interviewer mentioned in the article. Here are our suggested best practices:

• Develop a detailed and effective screening process –As we mentioned earlier, many candidates adopt the approach that presenting their information in the most positive manner means embellishing their level of seniority or their level of responsibility for tasks and duties and this is accepted to an extent; however, when an applicant decides to include false information, this becomes a big issue.  A detailed and thorough screening process from an experienced recruiter can significantly minimize this risk and accurately reflect suitability for a role.
• Ensure that all members of the hiring team are on board with the recruiting process and trained in how to gain detailed information. And when you gather that information, do so in a consistent format that can be evaluated in detail; it helps to be able to compare ‘apples to apples’ when evaluating multiple candidates.
• Conduct reference and background checks – a majority of the fibbing occurs when a candidate claims to have a college degree, past companies and job titles. These are easy lies to discover during background and reference checks.
• Always go through all information on a resume with a candidate during that first screening phone call, including dates and specific data.

Would love to read about other steps recruiters and hiring managers have taken to more efficiently weed out dishonest candidates. Share your stories in our comments section.