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Employer Insights

Is That Job Candidate Lying To You?

The job market is competitive. There are often hundreds of applications for just one single job. Job candidates will do just about anything to land the job. That includes lying.

Job Candidate lying during job interview with fingers crossed picture

Entrepreneur.com writes that 1 in 4 job candidates have exaggerated the truth to get hired. It doesn’t matter if it’s a white lie, stretching the truth, or a blatant misrepresentation of the facts – a lie is a lie and it is unacceptable.

13 Red Flags To Watch Out For When Hiring A New Employee

It’s frustrating when a potential new employee looks you in the eyes in an interview and blatantly lies to you, but it happens all of the time. Get ready for it. The most common things that job candidates lie about include:

  • Previous salary
  • Work experience
  • Job responsibilities
  • Education and degrees
  • Skill sets
  • References
  • Criminal background checks

As you’re interviewing a prospective job candidate, it would be great if you were a mind reader. Then you could instantly catch them in a lie and call them out and teach them a lesson, but that’s basically impossible. What you can do is watch a candidate’s body language. Try to watch for changes in tone of voice, hand gestures, fidgeting, eye contact, or repeating words and phrases.

Unfortunately, unless the stars align perfectly, it’s practically impossible to catch a job candidate in a lie during the job interview. You’re not a human lie detector. It’s easier to catch a job candidate’s lies after the job interview.

After the job interview, you get to play detective. It’s important to research every candidate, but if things to seem too good to be true, you definitely need to triple check to make sure your perfect new employee is being honest.

Here are the best ways to catch a job candidate in a lie:

Dishonesty in a job interview can easily result in bad hire. We all know how much it costs to hire a new employee, that’s why it’s best to do your research to ensure that you hire the right person for the job in the first place. Plus, no one likes a liar!

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