Job applicants are being warned that lying on their CVs is a big gamble and may lead to them getting fired.

The warning follows Lee McQueen’s victory in the BBC TV show The Apprentice. He was chosen as the programme’s winner by Sir Alan Sugar despite having been found to have used his CV to exaggerate the length of time he spent at university.

The 2008 Recruitment and Retention Survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has shown that in one year a quarter of employers in the UK withdrew job offers after discovering someone had lied or otherwise misrepresented their application.

Earlier research from the CIPD shows nearly as many (23 per cent) dismissed someone who was already in post for the same offence.

Deborah Fernon, CIPD Recruitment Adviser, said that a CV was not the best place for modesty.

“There’s nothing wrong with selling yourself when you’re applying for a job. But if you lie on your CV, you need to prepare to be caught. And if you do get caught, you could get fired,” she added.

Fernon said that you may be lucky enough to get an employer like Sir Alan Sugar who was willing to give you a second chance, but pointed out that most job interviews don’t last 11 weeks and don’t offer so many second chances.

“Employers still place a high value on honesty. One little lie on your CV could be enough to leave you out of a job, and with even more explaining to do next time you’re in a job interview,” she added.

Fernon explained that school and university leavers about to start applying for jobs needed to know that employers do check CVs for accuracy, and would take a dim view of dishonesty.

She warned that real business life was often a million miles away from the twists and turns of TV’s the Apprentice.

“Basic values like honesty and genuine team-working abilities are valued far more highly by most employers than the impression given of business by The Apprentice,” Fernon concluded.

This year’s Recruitment and Retention research found that almost 90 per cent of employers mostly or always take up candidates’ references.

Seventy-two per cent of employers check the academic qualifications of job applicants, whilst 75% of employers check on absence records.

Share this: digg   del.ico.us   Newsvine   Reddit   Furl   technorati   Facebook

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name (required)

Email (required) (not published)

Website

Title

POST

By posting on this website you are agreeing to abide by our website comment policy and all posts are subject to the approval of the website editor. We will remove posts that contain offensive or threatening language, personal attacks on the writer or other posters, posts that are off topic and posts that are considered spam or specifically used to promote any commercial products or services. Any poster who repeatedly contravenes the policy will be banned from posting on the website.