Applicant Honesty: How To Spot The Lies
Here’s a hot scoop straight off the press, job candidates lie. They lie about everything. They lie about their experience, companies they have worked for, their skills, their knowledge and their academic achievements. You might even find that a job applicant has not put their real name on their resume or CV. Why do this? The answer is perhaps obvious. Job candidates know that they are facing a massive level of competition on the market and as such will do anything they can to gain the upper hand, even if it means being deceitful.
It is worth noting at this point that this does not apply to all job candidates. There are certainly some who will remain completely honest and ironically, they may be the ones you pass over because their resume doesn’t pop as much as others who may have exaggerated the truth or indeed, outright lied. You might wonder what the issue is here. After all, it’s not as though employees are lying about massive details, right? Wrong and this is why you need to know a few of the key ways that you can gain the upper hand and make sure potential employees aren’t hiding any dirty little secrets.
Don’t Rely On Their References
The first issue to consider is the problem of references. Don’t forget, job candidates choose their own references and they may cherry pick past employers that they know will give them a solid recommendation. But why rely on these individuals? If you look at their resume, you will find a wealth of different people that you can ask about this particular job candidate and there is absolutely nothing stopping you from giving them a call. Sometimes this will turn up nothing, but in other cases, you will find that their account of the candidate does not match the glowing recommendation of another.
Search Accessible Records
You would be amazed how many records can be accessed publicly online if you use the right search tool. Using something like CheckThem people search and doing a thorough and extensive check of records, and it is possible to find key information about potential employees from past criminal convictions to points on their licence. It all depends on the job that you are hiring for. A few points on a driving licence might not bother you if you are hiring an officer worker. But, if the job is for a delivery service, you could certainly see how this could impact an individual’s reliability. This is why searching public records is always a smart move.
Complete A Social Media Search
Finally, do make sure that you are checking for a social footprint online. An individual’s social profiles can tell you a lot about them and may even reveal embarrassing details of a person that you definitely don’t want associated with your company. Indeed, finding that they have no social profile online could be the clearest evidence that you shouldn’t trust them because they may be attempting to hide something.
What if all of their profiles are private? A skilled social media researcher knows how to get around this, and it is a service that you should consider using when completing the hiring process.