Experienced candidates may be tempted to lie on CV

Employers should be wary of older candidates who may be tempted to lie on their CVs to secure themselves an interview.

That is the advice being issued by the Recruitment Society, which has suggested that more mature candidates may lie because they think no one will check their degree results.

Steve Huxham, chairman of the Recruitment Society, explained that candidates who graduated up to 20 years ago may think that employers will not bother to check their qualifications because of the time that has elapsed since they graduated.

Commenting on the tough competition in the job market, Mr Huxham said: "We see, year-on-year, the degree results picking up, so the number of people who get firsts and 2:1s now, compared to ten, 15, 20 years ago,
is obviously higher."

Get our essential weekday HR news and updates. Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Work Email Keep up with the latest in HR... This field is hidden when viewing the form Optin_form This field is hidden when viewing the form Optin_date Year Month Day This field is hidden when viewing the form Batch_Newsletter

He suggested that older candidates may believe that having 20 years of experience behind them will count for a lot.

Statistics from the CV Survey published by the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors has suggested that the majority of job seekers are honest.

It revealed that 69.1 per cent of those who had been surveyed had neither lied nor embellished details on their CV to secure a job.