CareerBuilder offers up the 5 most common candidate lies in this article.  They bring up a good point in that 85% of all companies perform some type of candidate verification.  Surprisingly, candidates continue to embellish or falsify their information.

The top 5 lies:

Exaggerating Dates of Past Employment
…as many as 35 percent of all resumes include discrepancies related to previous employment

Falsifying the Degree or Credential Earned
With roughly a 20 percent discrepancy rate in information provided by candidates regarding their education qualifications, it’s important that companies understand the variety of ways applicants lie to claim unearned degrees.
Even if a candidate has earned a legitimate degree, the applicant may lie about what they majored in to enhance their qualifications for a specific job €“ claiming a degree in engineering rather than in history, for example.

Inflating Salary History or Title Held
It is a best practice to always contact previous employers to confirm job titles. Obtaining salary history is also an important step. In some cases, employers will provide it. However, other times, they will not, and the hiring company can instead ask a candidate to provide a W-2 form to confirm salary.

Concealing a Criminal Record
Roughly 11 percent of all background checks return with a criminal record. The most common way candidates with a criminal background attempt to avoid detection is by changing details, such as their date of birth or spelling of their name.

Hiding a Drug Habit
48 percent of Americans admit to having used an illegal drug in their lifetime, so conducting a proper drug test should be a standard step in any screening program.

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Most people are, according to a Workforce Management Quick Take titled Organizations Look to Get Personal in €™07. Statistics from the short article (my emphasis):

Organizations in 2007 will increasingly turn to personality tests when recruiting and hiring, according to Birkman International in Houston. Birkman, citing research from New Orleans-based Rocket-Hire Inc. (a Dear Workforce contributor), says 65 percent of companies used them in 2006, up from 34 percent a year earlier.

That is a noticeable increase in one year. If you are not using assessments today in your hiring process, we can help.

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Here is an urban legend we encounter frequently in our sales hiring activities – customers don’t walk with the salesperson.  What I mean is customers rarely follow a salesperson to a new company.  If the salesperson quits one company and goes to a competitor, it is a rare occurrence in which the customers move their business with the salesperson.

Yes, everyone can provide an example of when it happened, but we deal with many salespeople in many industries and it just is not common.  Sales candidates, on the other hand, will go out of their way claiming that they can bring the business with them.

Unfortunately, many companies who do not have a strong sales hiring process will get caught up in the possibility of gaining new business for little investment.  This blinding desire often masks the obvious weaknesses the sales candidate possesses.  Beware of this pitfall!

The best approach is to assess sales candidates based on their abilities, aptitudes and performance within your hiring process.  The strongest candidate may not be directly from your industry which will not be surprising if your run a talent-based process.  And if your final candidate is from your industry and brings a customer or two with them – terrific, they are the exception not the rule.  Just don’t make your hiring decision based on that hope.

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