There is difficulty with searching and hiring qualified job candidates, especially if you’re an employer or a hiring manager who doesn’t know how to spot a fake resume. If you know how to avoid this mistake, it will save you from having faulty hires and even thousands of money in the long run. 

If you think being a hiring manager is an easy job, it’s not. It can be a demanding job to find and hire the perfect candidate. You need to have great knowledge in evaluating various personalities to come up with a narrowed down list of candidates. A few of these personalities are fake, which only adds more complexity to the job. If you work for the HR department, you must be able to determine who is the right person for a specific position. To do this, you have to be experienced in spotting a lie in candidates resumes. 

The Reason Why Candidates Lie in Their Resume

People usually lie in the resumes because they are aware that it’s not a legal document, so they are not ‘legally’ required to tell the truth. Plus, it’s a tough world out there! There are so many skilled people who are competitive to get a job. Recent graduates are usually the ones who have a hard time to compete. For them to obtain the upper hand, they need to lie. It’s the truth. Although it’s not the right thing to do, they keep on doing it.

A great HR support must take responsibility to make sure that all data written in a candidate’s resume are true before hiring them. Here’s how: 

1. Know the Common Lies 

Before you begin determining lies in resumes, you must know the common types of information that job candidates tend to make up.

• Employment dates: Usually, candidates will extend the date of a specific job with the goal to conceal some gaps.
• Academic degrees, certificates, and other credentials: This may not happen all the time, but some people would lie about their degrees. 
• Accomplished projects and taking credits: Some applicants would tell you an achievement they’ve done individually, in reality, it was a team project in the company they previously worked for. 
• Volunteering activities: People would intentionally fabricate this just to give an image that they are socially-aware. 
• Salary or job titles: There are candidates who would go overboard with putting false titles or responsibilities they had on their last job, even the salary they’ve earned. This is a hack for them in order to get more out of their new potential job. 

2. Short and Awkward Phone Screening Answers 

Phone screenings are usually a good way to assess candidates. Some candidates may be questionable and they may not even respond at all, and just answer questions with brief answers. They can’t even explain it to you thoroughly. The worst thing is, some candidates are 100% fake with their fabricated degrees, experiences, and credentials. It’s a big challenge for employers and hiring managers. So make sure to ask questions that are relevant to what they claim in their resume so you can recognize them early on. 

3. They Give You General Answers to Specific Questions 

It’s advised that you ask your candidate very specific and detailed questions during the interview. For instance, if they went to Harvard, you can ask who was their professor of Law. This is just an easy question but it can surely conceal a big lie they are putting up. Also, if the dates in the job history look weird, try asking specific interview around it. You can ask examples of their experience and let them tell you a story. Make them prove what they’re claiming when it comes to the success they’ve achieved. Also, study their body language carefully, it can tell you something. 

4. Putting So Many Information 

Does the resume contain a long list of skills that seem shady to you? With the help of today’s automated screening technology, the list of skills can identify whether the CV would pass through the human-vetting level. Therefore, it can explain why a lot of candidate place so many information on different skills that they don’t even have, just for the purpose of impressing the employer. You can verify with the candidate in his or her reference list too. 

5. They Fail Tests and Get Low Score in Quizzes 

The reason why hiring managers use tests and quizzes to assess specific skills and experience is some candidates will like about those skills. So if they claim a specific set of skills you are requiring, you can depend on exams or quizzes early during the hiring process. In this way, you’ll be able to get rid of candidates who lied about that part. Most of the time, candidates will try to disguise their inadequate experience with lies they regard as innocent. So, it’s an advantage that you create a simple quiz to test the candidate since you won’t be able to interview them at the beginning of the hiring process. If you need more tips to know if an applicant is lying to you, read HR Recruiting Tips: 5 Guaranteed Ways to Tell if a Candidate is Lying in a Job Interview.