People lie all the time. Sometimes they call it “white lies”. You know, the kind of lie that they think it cannot hurt. Well, these little white lies look great on a resume, when you try to get a good job, right? And after all, the resume is there just to get you through the door and you are confident that you can do the job, right?
Wrong. Studies show that millennials are more than twice as likely to lie on their resumes, with 11% of adults ages 25 to 34 admitted to lying at least once.
But what do they lie about and how could that impact your business?
1. Work experience
The job market is already experiencing change, with trends showing that people are less interested in lifetime careers and looking to change domains more often. So, when it comes to work experience, a lot of people feel the need to make their resume look prettier by adding responsibilities to their former jobs. This means that you might hire the wrong person for the job, but you will find out about it too late.
2. Dates of employment
Sure, it is not easy to keep a job, but we see a migratory trend and people tend to jump from one job to another for a better paycheck or even for a new work environment. So, it is no surprise that you would see two or three “errors” in the dates of employment.
3. Job titles
Founders, project managers, senior managers…. how often do these appear on a resume of a 25-year-old candidate? Well… you would be shocked that some of these positions are… well… only plain lies. We are not saying all of them are, but some do. When you cross check the job titles with the responsibilities and then with references things do not really add up.
4. References
Not a lot of people ask for recommendation letters. Some write them for themselves. Some lie about why they left the previous job. You would have no way of knowing the real situation. We do. Because we do not take at face value what we see. Often what we learn paints a slightly different picture than the one presented. Sometimes. But do you feel ready to take the risk?
5. Education
Along with a wide range of online courses, seminaries or conferences and even college education, it is no wonder that we come across lies in this area. Sometimes people “forget” to mention that they did not graduate. Or that they do not have a degree. Sometimes the degree is just fake. Seems unlikely, but it happens mostly because people have this expectation that they will be trained at the job, so education is not really important. We have seen it before. And we will see it again.
However, there is a silver lining in all of this. Since 2013, we have been dealing with all these situations and we can signal them discretely to the employer. It saves time, it saves money, and it could even save your business.
So, if we made you curious, you could check us out on www.mindit.ro and learn more about the areas we cover through the background screening process.
People lie all the time. Sometimes they call it “white lies”. You know, the kind of lie that they think it cannot hurt. Well, these little white lies look great on a resume, when you try to get a good job, right? And after all, the resume is there just to get you through the door and you are confident that you can do the job, right?
Wrong. Studies show that millennials are more than twice as likely to lie on their resumes, with 11% of adults ages 25 to 34 admitted to lying at least once.
