Lying on job applications

[ian@huth]

Over the years I would say that the majority of CVs that I have received with job applications have been untruthfull. Funnily enough I would say that many of them were understating their qualifications and experience in order to get more manual type work for a short period whilst they were looking for something better and more permanent. This particularly was the case in University towns and you had to be very thorough in your vetting of CVs if you wanted an employee for the long term and didn't want the training put to waste on someone who only wanted the job for a few months.

Another thing that I came across was "job club" applications. These were from a group of unemployed people who banded together to provide each other with experience. Each member of the "club" would become an "employer" and produce official looking company stationary on their PC. Members of the "club" would use these "employers" in their CV and if you wrote to them for references you would get official looking responses from the "company". I tumbled on this when I had an application for a job from a person who claimed to have worked for a number of years with a certain company which had an address on a street that I knew was only residential, mainly bedsits and student accomodation.