There are many shades on the CV fraud spectrum. Our minds tend to jump immediately to fake degrees or completely falsified periods of employment; but sometimes the smaller discrepancies can be just as damaging to an employer if left uncovered.
At PeopleCheck, we see so many discrepancies between the position claimed by candidates on their CV and those confirmed by their previous employer when an employment verification is undertaken. Recently, we have had an influx of red flags for clients across various industries.
Our financial services client was surprised to see that the candidate they had offered a position to based on their experience as a “Senior Investment Adviser” was actually a “Desk Assistant” with their previous employer. One of our recruitment clients had second thoughts about a candidate they were putting forward for a HR position when the employment verification with their previous employer returned that the candidate was a “Mailroom Clerk” and had fabricated their experience as “National HR Consultant”. Our favourite was a candidate for an executive role with one of our superannuation clients who decided to replace their position title of “Research and Development Chemist” in favour of “Managing Director”.
Needless to say, our clients see the value in verifying their candidates’ positions and other details with previous employers! There are risks on so many levels that can be avoided from such a simple and cost-effective measure.