Be completely honest when you answer this question: have you ever told a lie with the intention to look good in another person’s eyes? Think about the interviews you’ve been at during the beginnings of your career journey. Have you ever thought about inflating your foreign language skills and telling few other white lies in the resume? Guess what: every other applicant is thinking of the same thing… most of them are doing it!
As an HR manager, you can check most of the information provided in the resume. You can call the people this applicant referenced and you can check if they really gained that degree. Some lies are too obvious, but they still get revealed a bit too late. Do you remember that time when David Tovar, a top Wal-Mart spokesman, was caught in a lie about earning a degree from the University of Delaware? Scott Thompson, former CEO of Yahoo!, faced the same kind of embarrassment in 2012, when the whole world realized he falsely claimed to have earned a degree in computer science. These are big lies, but somehow they remain unnoticed by the organizations until it’s too late.
How do you prevent yourself from hiring a person who lies? Maybe he does have the skills you need, but lying is a skill you’re not into. We’ll go through some tips that will teach you how to keep your eyes open when hiring new people in your organization.
Read the Resumes!
If you’re like most other hiring managers, you’re probably spending less than five minutes on a resume. You have several of them to review, so you’re rushing the process. That’s the first mistake you’re making. How do you expect to catch an applicant in a lie if you don’t pay attention to the content? The candidates know you’re not giving them a lot of time. That’s why they are trying to impress you with keywords and catchy phrases that attract your eye. They might throw in a lie and you won’t even notice.
The typical resume is short as it is, so make sure to read the whole thing. Process the information and double check the claims on education and experience for the candidates you’re interested in. Do you notice any buzzwords? Are they used in relevant context or did the candidate throw them in without making a clear point?
Know the Common Lies
Hannah Miller, an HR manager, explains that people like to inflate information in the categories of education and employment history. “We always warn them that the resumes have to be 100% honest, but some candidates still want to throw in an attraction factor that’s basically a lie. They usually lie about having course certificates and working in a higher position than they’ve ever had. Some of them will go to the extent of creating fake job references. My honest recommendation for hiring managers is to always, always check the references and education information. You can’t be too careful with these aspects.”
Check the timeline very carefully. Does everything fall into place? During interviews, ask the candidates how they got their first job and where that experience led them. Don’t ask any other questions; just tell them to tell you about their job history. If you notice insecurity somewhere along the way, ask them to tell you more about that experience.
Dig Through Social Media
You can easily check the references and ask to see the certificates and degrees the candidate listed. What about the interests? You want to hire versed people who would fit into the company’s culture. How do you know they are really interested in reading, outdoor activities, and meditation? Check their social media profiles!
There’s a reason why many employers won’t interview applicants they can’t find online. The online reputation of a person is very important, simply because it lets you understand their personality. Let’s say a candidate’s resume says reading the classic is his passion. You find their Goodreads profile and see they listed Fifty Shades of Grey in their favorites, and you see zero classics in the rest of their list. That’s an obvious lie, and social media told helped you to spot it.
Do a Background Check
You can’t do this with all candidates, but a background check is crucial for the ones that enter the narrow selection. When you consider hiring someone, you need to examine every aspect of their resume, including the degree and certificates, the dates when they got those degrees, and the responsibilities they had at past positions.
You can ask to see the degrees, so you’ll make sure the candidate didn’t lie about graduating early. As for the previous positions, things get more complicated when you check them. It’s very likely that some of those candidates included a fake number of a previous supervisor. You’ll call their friend, who’ll tell you this is the best person you could possibly hire. That’s why you should go online to make sure it’s a real company the candidate is talking about. Then, call the HR department to check what job title and responsibilities they had. This may seem like a time-consuming task, but it’s necessary for the people you intend to hire.
You don’t want to hire a great person and find out they were lying in the resume years from now. This doesn’t mean you need to turn into a paranoid hiring manager who’s suspicious of every single detail in the resume. All you need to do is read the applications as carefully as possible and check the most important details.
