Lies and resumes: Know your rights as an employer

September 10, 2008

For any company, the process of hiring a new employee can be daunting. After combing through resume after resume of unqualified job seekers and conducting numerous interviews, it’s certainly a relief once the applicant pool is narrowed down to the candidate who stands out above the rest.

His resume boasts an advanced degree, an impressive set of skills and years of experience in the field. Just a quick, routine reference check stands between him and the job.

Only, school records show he dropped out after his first semester. And his previously listed employer can’t seem to recall him. In fact, further investigation shows that no such person has ever worked for the company.

Although usually less blatant, lying on a resume is not uncommon. According to Careerbuilder.com, almost half of the employers they surveyed have caught potential employees in lies – from exaggerated responsibilities and skill sets to falsified job titles, dates of employment and to unearned academic degrees. Some survey participants even cited some rather colorful embellishments (see below).

The popular job search site conducted their survey online between May 22 and June 13. Over 3,100 hiring managers and 8,700 employees throughout the country participated.

While 49 percent of hiring managers claimed to have unearthed falsified information on resumes, only 8 percent of workers surveyed admitted to the misdeed.

Perhaps the most interesting statistic, though, is the employer’s response in this situation. Of the hiring managers who encountered an embellished resume, only 57 percent immediately dismissed the applicant. Thirty-six percent still considered the candidate, but ultimately did not hire him or her.

But 6 percent of surveyed employers hired the applicant despite their awareness of the resume discrepancies. Doing the math, that’s roughly 93 out of 1550 dishonest applicants who got the job.

It might seem like a lucky break for those unscrupulous job seekers, but their resumes could potentially come back to haunt them, even after they are hired.

In Virginia, employers have the legal right, at any time, to turn around and use the false resume material against an employee as grounds for dismissal, according to Richmond employment attorney David R. Simonsen Jr.

“It’s not illegal to tell an employee they’ve changed their mind,” said Simonsen. He explained that employees fired for fabricating their resumes don’t have much protection under the law, whether employers make the discovery pre-hire or years into the worker’s career.

According to Simonsen, employees can only file suit if they can present proof that the employer’s underlying reason for dismissal was unlawful.

For instance, a plaintiff can go forward with a discrimination claim if multiple employees were caught with falsified resumes, but only those of a certain race, gender or age were let go while others were allowed to stay.

Or if an employee was suddenly fired for lying on his resume 20 years earlier, the employee could have room to argue that the reason for termination was false and pretextual.

While it may call into question the honesty and integrity of the defendant employer, the odds would still be stacked in its favor.

“Virginia judges are generally not impressed with a plaintiff with that kind of wrongdoing in their background,” said Simonsen.

Still, employers should use caution when a reference check goes awry. If a job candidate isn’t forthcoming from the beginning, there’s nothing to suggest that he will be so during the course of his career.

Lies, half-truths and fabrications

In a recent Careerbuilder.com survey, hiring managers shared these over-the-top lies they’ve encountered in resumes:

• Claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family
• Invented a school that did not exist
• Submitted a resume with someone else’s photo inserted into the document
• Claimed to be a member of Mensa
• Claimed to have worked for the hiring manager before, but never had
• Claimed to be the CEO of a company when the candidate was an hourly employee
• Listed military experience dating back to before he was born
• Included samples of work that the interviewer actually did
• Claimed to be Hispanic when he was 100 percent Caucasian
• Claimed to have been a professional baseball player

Written by Sarah Rodriguez  |  Filed Under Employment 

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