Falsifying a Job Application
Falsifying job applications is risky business that can result in termination of employment should you get hired. You don't have to lie on your application or resume to be successful.
Your application is your ticket into the hiring process, but it can also be held as evidence when you are terminated.
The application must reflect your criminal, employment, and educational history. Any organization worth their salt will check each of these to verify the information that you provide. If for some reason you are hired with a fraudulent application, you may be fired immediately upon discovering of the lies.
Most common lies on an application include:
Dates
- Months or days are fudged to show no gaps in employment. Candidates may even show that they are still employed, although they were recently terminated. A simple phone call will expose this inaccuracy.Employment History - Covering gaps in employment is the motivation for inventing fake consulting work. People create a fake company (only in the resume) for whom they were consulting.
Education - Creative license is taken with what constitutes a completed degree. When a school confers a degree upon you, that's the indication that you've completed it. People say they have completed degrees, but haven't finished, add fake extended degrees, or add college when they did not attend college at all. Employers check on degrees and to find that you've lied, means that you'll be immediately excluded from interviewing or terminated if you've been hired.
Job Title - Candidates believe that a more responsible title, such as their old bosses' for instance, is much more impressive than their own. Again, easy to check on and verify.
Compensation - People lie about their compensation. Organizations do consider what the candidate made in their previous job, but it's qualifications and experience that determine the new rate. Compensation is easy to verify and sometimes if you give too high a salary, you may be considered too expensive to hire.
Reason for leaving - This area of the application gives some indication of the candidates values and motivation. Candidates may indicate that they were laid off when actually they were fired, which is considered falsifying job applications. Lay offs happen, but sometimes employees are given comparable jobs elsewhere in the organization.
You will get caught if you falsify a resume. Above are a few of the many lies that were tried and got caught. A resume is not a legal document, you could lie - but shouldn't, but an application is a legal document and when your resume and the application are not even close, they will figure out your dishonest trickery.
