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By Katherine Doe
Today’s hiring world is fast-paced and competitive. So, it’s not surprising that many candidates may exaggerate or falsify their employment credentials under the immense pressure to stand out. In fact, it's a widespread occurrence.
Someone embellishing on their résumé may not always mean he or she is a bad candidate. But, when you rely only on self-reported information to make hiring decisions, inaccurate or inflated work histories could result in turnover and increased hiring expenditures.
It’s useful to recognize potential misinformation early to rule out candidates who may not match your qualifications. As a result, you'll help reduce regrettable hires and turnover. Here are three application untruths to look for:
Candidates say they’ve held higher positions than they really have. For example, a candidate may claim she's an assistant manager, but she actually only held entry-level positions.
Candidates exclude roles from their résumé or application. For example, they could omit a random job they had in college that’s not related to their current work — or a short stint they had with one of your competitors.
Candidates alter position details. For example, they may list a false start or end date for a particular job to make it seem like they were employed longer.
Now that you know what to look for, what’s the best way to uncover untruths? With a solution that enables you to verify a candidate’s employment history before you hire them — like Pre-Employment Verifications from The Work Number®.
With Pre-Employment Verifications, you can:
Simply put: when you know more about candidates early, you can reduce your likelihood of hiring talent you may have to replace a short time later. Consequently, you can focus on candidates that better fit your qualifications and may better align to your desired employee retention and tenure goals. In fact, employers that verify self-reported information pre-hire realize 45% higher one-year retention rates.2
About 75% of human resource professionals say they commonly find inaccuracies on résumés.3 For more information on Pre-Employment Verifications, download our guide “Making the Most of Pre-Employment Verifications.”
[sources] 1 https://www.inc.com/jt-odonnell/staggering-85-of-job-applicants-lying-on-resumes-.html 2“Know More. Hire Smarter.,” Equifax, March 2019 3 https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/75-percent-of-human-resource-managers-have-caught-a-resume-lie.html