Everybody’s party to a little embellishing or the occasional white lie, but when stretching the truth becomes outright lying for a role, then a recruiter needs to pull their candidate up before their client does.

With pressure to stand out from the crowd, some candidates feel the need to pad out their CV’s, sugar-coat the truth, and sometimes even make up complete fables.

HR Review recently revealed that over two thirds of hiring managers reported catching a lie on a CV with two fifths of employers stating they immediately write a candidate off if they find untruths, and a further half saying it would depend on the nature of the lie.

This underlines the need to fine comb CV’s from candidates, and qualify their claims, check their history and piece together the story a candidate creates.

Trust is an essential part of employment and if a candidate is sent to a business where the client then probes a little deeper and catches a lie then not only is the candidate likely to fail but it will reflect poorly on the recruiter, as every candidate is an extension of an agency’s reputation.

It may sometimes be a fine line between the truth and dressing up a strength which is why it falls to a recruiter to use their judgement on where that line sits.

Candidates are most likely to ‘forget’ the accuracy around their education, shade in their employment history, or even fantasise about being a director, which has risen consecutively over the last 18 months.