Avoiding applicants who misrepresented their abilities

Many job seekers lie or exaggerate their abilities on their resumes.

Around 80 percent of employee turnover is attributed to poor hiring decisions, according to the Harvard Business Review. While some managers made bad hiring choices based on hasty decisions, inadequate research into the employee or hiring someone based on their personality, not their skills, some of these terrible hires got their position because they were untruthful.

While many people commonly joke that “everyone lies on their resume,” this may be more true than some realize. According to a recent survey from CareerBuilder, around 56 percent of the 2,500 hiring managers interviewed caught applicants misinterpreting their abilities on their resumes.

“One of the reasons candidates may feel okay embellishing their resumes is that they don’t realize hiring managers are actually following up to verify the claims they make on their resumes,” CareerBuilder spokeswoman Mary Lorenz explained to Martha White at Time. In actuality, Lorenz goes on to say, the majority of companies do, in fact, do their research.

In a recent study of 335 unemployed individuals, researchers from four major universities discovered that people are more likely to exaggerate or even outright lie on their resume if they compare themselves to their successful peers. Essentially, jealousy prompts people to commit resume fraud in hopes of gaining an even better position than that of their friends or family.

“Job search envy has the potential to produce negative or positive reactions,’ wrote the study’s co-author Brian Dineen, associate professor at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. “We propose the envious reactions of job-seekers can be negative in the form of resume fraud, but can also be positive in the form of greater job search effort.”

Whether it is jealousy, desperation or something else entirely that causes applicants to stretch the truth of their resume skills, it is harmful for companies when managers hire unfit candidates, but even more so for those in the healthcare industry. In many business sectors, people can eventually be trained to perform their job, or be fired and replaced with a more suitable employee. But in high-stakes healthcare environments, inadequate employees can put patients and the employer at risk.

To avoid hiring applicants who misrepresent their abilities, always use pre employment testing services during the screening process to avoid having to only rely on possibly untrue resumes and interviews alone.

“Employers can increase the likelihood of hiring high-quality candidates by using pre-employment tests to help screen and select the best candidates for jobs,” Lisa Quast at Forbes explained. “Administered correctly, pre-employment testing can help companies save time and cost in the selection process, decrease turnover, increase productivity, and improve morale.”

Lessening employee turnover and customer dissatisfaction is only a phone call away. Contact EmployTest today to learn more about how we can help you improve your company’s hiring processes and employee retention.