White-collar lies on rise?

Fudging or fabricating on professional résumés is nothing new, but hiring managers and consulting firms say it’s more common in a difficult economy as applicants seek an advantage over the competition.

And it’s often hard to detect, especially by human resources departments that also might have fewer resources.

Say, for example, an applicant for a finance job states that his or her previous position included overseeing the company’s $25 million budget. Except the budget was really only $10 million.

That embellishment would be hard to detect, especially when a hiring manager or recruiter is sifting through hundreds or thousands of applications, said Geoff Heller, recruiting director for West Corp. in Omaha.

“Unless you talk to someone specifically who had firsthand knowledge of that information, it’s hard to verify,” Heller said.

According to a recent study by HireRight, an international background-screening firm, 69 percent of 1,800 businesses responding said they caught applicants lying on their résumés.

HireRight doesn’t have comparable statistics for previous years, but a similar survey in 2008 by CareerBuilder.com showed that 49 percent of 3,100 hiring managers said they caught a job applicant lying. The Society of Human Resources Management reported in 2003 that 53 percent of applicants used false information.

The HireRight study indicates that more people have embellished, fudged or downright lied on their résumés since the recession, which started in December 2007, pushing the national unemployment rate to around 10 percent.

Angie Jones, owner of Haute Resume & Career Services in Omaha and Lincoln, said she doesn’t accept clients who have even the slightest fib on their professional documents.

Not only would it violate her company’s code of ethics, it’s stupid, she said. If detected, it could become a scarlet letter for the rest of the person’s career.

“You’re only hurting yourself,” she said. “Not just with that particular employer, but with others in the industry, because everyone is so well-connected.”

Jones said it’s illegal in 11 states to lie on a résumé and a felony in five — Kentucky, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon and Washington. Nebraska and Iowa don’t have laws that make lying on résumés a crime, but employers can deny employment, fire or sue job candidates or employees who do so, Jones said.

Heller, the West Corp. recruiting director, said job candidates rarely lies on résumés.

“We’re not seeing it here,” he said.

But then again, how can he be sure applicants aren’t stretching the truth and operating under his radar?

“They could be,” he acknowledged.

“It depends on the depth of the background check, the type of company and the type of job. Some companies are going to dive much deeper than others.”

In general, the higher-profile the job, the more in-depth the background check, including criminal, credit and professional history, and reference checks.

It’s realistic to think that some of the nearly 800 people hired nationwide in the last two months, including 500 in Omaha, for call-center positions have fudged information on their résumés, Heller said. The company employs about 2,600 people in Omaha.

Information difficult to verify without talking to an immediate supervisor includes job descriptions, responsibilities and achievements, Heller said.

Verification becomes even harder as previous positions fade into the distant past, said Michael Eastman, a career center manager for Nebraska Workforce Development.

For example, an applicant might say he or she did project management, and the recruiter might never be able to reach the person’s supervisor, Eastman said.

“So who’s going to verify that you did that job?” he said. “After a year or two you know the supervisor is gone, it may be difficult to verify you did the work at that company. If you worked for somebody 10 years ago, their staff has probably turned over.”

Contact the writer:

444-1414, ross.boettcher@owh.com

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