It is not unheard of for job candidates to exaggerate parts of their CV to gain a competitive edge, adding qualifications or experiences that aren't fully true. So, what do you do if you hire someone and find out they have 'bent the truth'?
There are no hard and fast rules, much will depend on how big the lie was. Does it have the potential to cause a serious impact on your business? How quickly did you discover the lie? If the employee has been employed for a while and is performing well, does it matter if their grades are not quite as good as they have made out?
It's probably OK to look past details that stretch the truth a little, but if the candidate has never worked at a company listed on their CV or attended the university claimed, this is a serious breach of trust and you'd be well within your rights to dismiss them.
How do you approach this situation? The first step in dealing with a new hire who lied about something on a resume is to confront the person directly. The meeting should be conducted in private and the person who is handling the meeting should be straightforward and polite. Any of the rest of the information on the resume should be cross-referenced at this point in time.
Solid evidence and reasoning should be presented in order to show that the employee has fabricated this information, but that employee should also be given an opportunity to explain.
An employer may not find out that a dishonest employee has lied until long after he or she was hired. Claiming to possess a special certification or a degree may help a new employee get higher compensation, extra benefits or even a higher role in the company.
However, if these qualifications originally claimed do not exist, yet the employee seems to be capable of doing the job and is very apologetic, the company may choose to keep them on board while lowering his rank or cutting his compensation. This allows the employee to remain employed, however, he or she is only being paid where their experience and their skills truly merit. The reason a company would do this is because even though they are capable of doing the job, they are now certain the employee is not as good as they previously claimed they were.
In other situations, a company may not feel comfortable at all continuing to employ someone who lied about their skills, background, or degrees on a resume. This is primarily because that same person could be lying about other things as well. Keeping a hire on your team who you cannot trust can be a frustrating burden.
Companies tend to have different values and expectations when hiring somebody and are not expected to employ dishonest people when they have applied for a job interview. Most companies will see this as a very bad to begin with and may also have a hard time trusting you later on down the line if you stay with that said company.
Furthermore, an unskilled employee or an untrustworthy employee could be a real danger to co-workers. If the human resources department decides that this is a particularly egregious offense, they are well within their rights to simply terminate the employee’s contract.
Studies have shown that 78% of employees have lied on their resumes and many employers said that if this was discovered, they would give new hires a second chance depending on the severity of the lie.
Before jumping to conclusions, it is important to set aside time to talk to the employee directly to get a clear sense of what is going on and to find the most appropriate course of action. Many organizations will benefit from having policies in place that allow a manager to fire an employee for lying on a resume.
Lying about qualifications is especially serious in some industries as is concealing certain criminal convictions or a ban on working in some specified roles or positions. Such lies could put colleagues, customers and the general public in danger. Even if health and safety isn't an issue, a dishonest employee could damage the reputation of your company.
The best way to avoid this kind of problem is to carry out a thorough background check on a candidate's qualifications before hiring them and carrying out any required criminal records. Also, you can ask for copies of certificates and get contact details of previous employers. Make all your job offers conditional on receiving satisfactory references and getting a green light from your background checks.
