It's an integrity and ethical issue only you can define. If you hire that person even knowing there are lies on the application, you have also just made it extremely difficult to do anything about the next applicant that lies. Remember your practices, whatever they are, need to be consistent. You need to decide what constitutes your line in the sand.

The title, dates of employment, and base salary are three things most HR departments will give out. (Release of any compensation information requires pre-approval from the employee.) However, as more companies are ending up in court for releasing information that

I'm a huge proponent of background checks. However, I'm going to focus on just one aspect of a background check for this article: employment history. Why is this so important? Because, in my experience, you tend to believe the written word. In this case, that's often the employment application. Just because your candidate signed the application swearing what they wrote is the truth, it doesn't necessarily make it so. I know that may sound cynical but it doesn't make it any less true.

I used to rely on hiring managers to call a candidate's previous employers to confirm employment history. However, one particularly busy manager didn't bother and it ended up costing the company over $30,000 in legal fees a few years later. Live and learn. This particular case, which got much more complicated by the time it was over, was the primary reason I started conducting background investigations years before most companies were doing them. It's also the reason I will pay a few dollars more to include the employment history on the background checks I order. Oh, in that case I mentioned, it turned out the candidate omitted a job with one of our competitors … a hire that ended up costing them a lot of money.

An article I read mentioned the most common lies on resumes were about the candidate's education, title, compensation, reason for leaving, and accomplishments. Why would a candidate lie to you about the title and compensation they had? Nearly every time it will be because they want to pump up their old position so you will feel obligated to improve on what they had. It works, too. Rarely does a manager come to me without putting in a plug for a "nice bump" in the previous salary so the candidate will be more inclined to take our offer.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make a nice offer. But how would you feel about increasing your budget to give them that extra bump … only to discover they had inflated their previous earnings? Not only are you upset about paying more for the position than you planned, but you have just discovered this person is a liar. After swearing it was the truth. CEOs I've worked with know this is the line in the sand with me. If I find a candidate has lied on the application, they are not hired (or immediately fired). It doesn't matter if they are a vice president or a file clerk. If they lie to you to get the job, what will they do to you once they have the job?

It's an integrity and ethical issue only you can define. If you hire that person even knowing there are lies on the application, you have also just made it extremely difficult to do anything about the next applicant that lies. Remember your practices, whatever they are, need to be consistent. You need to decide what constitutes your line in the sand.

The title, dates of employment, and base salary are three things most HR departments will give out. (Release of any compensation information requires pre-approval from the employee.) However, as more companies are ending up in court for releasing information that

I used to rely on hiring managers to call a candidate's previous employers to confirm employment history. However, one particularly busy manager didn't bother and it ended up costing the company over $30,000 in legal fees a few years later. Live and learn. This particular case, which got much more complicated by the time it was over, was the primary reason I started conducting background investigations years before most companies were doing them. It's also the reason I will pay a few dollars more to include the employment history on the background checks I order. Oh, in that case I mentioned, it turned out the candidate omitted a job with one of our competitors … a hire that ended up costing them a lot of money.

An article I read mentioned the most common lies on resumes were about the candidate's education, title, compensation, reason for leaving, and accomplishments. Why would a candidate lie to you about the title and compensation they had? Nearly every time it will be because they want to pump up their old position so you will feel obligated to improve on what they had. It works, too. Rarely does a manager come to me without putting in a plug for a "nice bump" in the previous salary so the candidate will be more inclined to take our offer.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make a nice offer. But how would you feel about increasing your budget to give them that extra bump … only to discover they had inflated their previous earnings? Not only are you upset about paying more for the position than you planned, but you have just discovered this person is a liar. After swearing it was the truth. CEOs I've worked with know this is the line in the sand with me. If I find a candidate has lied on the application, they are not hired (or immediately fired). It doesn't matter if they are a vice president or a file clerk. If they lie to you to get the job, what will they do to you once they have the job?

It's an integrity and ethical issue only you can define. If you hire that person even knowing there are lies on the application, you have also just made it extremely difficult to do anything about the next applicant that lies. Remember your practices, whatever they are, need to be consistent. You need to decide what constitutes your line in the sand.

The title, dates of employment, and base salary are three things most HR departments will give out. (Release of any compensation information requires pre-approval from the employee.) However, as more companies are ending up in court for releasing information that

An article I read mentioned the most common lies on resumes were about the candidate's education, title, compensation, reason for leaving, and accomplishments. Why would a candidate lie to you about the title and compensation they had? Nearly every time it will be because they want to pump up their old position so you will feel obligated to improve on what they had. It works, too. Rarely does a manager come to me without putting in a plug for a "nice bump" in the previous salary so the candidate will be more inclined to take our offer.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make a nice offer. But how would you feel about increasing your budget to give them that extra bump … only to discover they had inflated their previous earnings? Not only are you upset about paying more for the position than you planned, but you have just discovered this person is a liar. After swearing it was the truth. CEOs I've worked with know this is the line in the sand with me. If I find a candidate has lied on the application, they are not hired (or immediately fired). It doesn't matter if they are a vice president or a file clerk. If they lie to you to get the job, what will they do to you once they have the job?

It's an integrity and ethical issue only you can define. If you hire that person even knowing there are lies on the application, you have also just made it extremely difficult to do anything about the next applicant that lies. Remember your practices, whatever they are, need to be consistent. You need to decide what constitutes your line in the sand.

The title, dates of employment, and base salary are three things most HR departments will give out. (Release of any compensation information requires pre-approval from the employee.) However, as more companies are ending up in court for releasing information that

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make a nice offer. But how would you feel about increasing your budget to give them that extra bump … only to discover they had inflated their previous earnings? Not only are you upset about paying more for the position than you planned, but you have just discovered this person is a liar. After swearing it was the truth. CEOs I've worked with know this is the line in the sand with me. If I find a candidate has lied on the application, they are not hired (or immediately fired). It doesn't matter if they are a vice president or a file clerk. If they lie to you to get the job, what will they do to you once they have the job?

It's an integrity and ethical issue only you can define. If you hire that person even knowing there are lies on the application, you have also just made it extremely difficult to do anything about the next applicant that lies. Remember your practices, whatever they are, need to be consistent. You need to decide what constitutes your line in the sand.

The title, dates of employment, and base salary are three things most HR departments will give out. (Release of any compensation information requires pre-approval from the employee.) However, as more companies are ending up in court for releasing information that

It's an integrity and ethical issue only you can define. If you hire that person even knowing there are lies on the application, you have also just made it extremely difficult to do anything about the next applicant that lies. Remember your practices, whatever they are, need to be consistent. You need to decide what constitutes your line in the sand.

The title, dates of employment, and base salary are three things most HR departments will give out. (Release of any compensation information requires pre-approval from the employee.) However, as more companies are ending up in court for releasing information that may have had a negative effect on the employee's ability to become employed by others, it's becoming harder to get even this information. It seems that companies specializing in background investigations are able to more easily obtain this information.

If you decide to check employment history yourself, make sure you are very consistent with your methods. You can't let one slide just because the other company doesn't immediate provide you the information. Find a way to get the confirmation you need to keep moving forward with your recruiting process. I find that, for the time spent making the calls or faxing permissions, it's less costly to me to have it done as part of the whole background investigation.

Oh, by the way, that problem candidate/employee we had? We found out a year after termination that the employee was still listing us as a current employer. Then, ironically, it turns out that a few years later this same person applied to a different company with which I was working. The resume completely omitted the three years' employment with my other company. It was the same trap and I pitied whoever hired this person next without confirming employment history!