Top 5 Candidate Lies

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.