A recent survey found that as many as 27% of people admit that they have lied or exaggerated on their CVs.Typically, there are two main categories of falsehood: timescales and exaggeration.

Dates of employment will be extended to cover periods of unemployment or, worse still, hide short-lived jobs. Short-lived appointments may give the impression the candidate failed and was fired, while multiple short-term roles could compound this by indicating a lack of stability or perseverance, so you can see why candidates may wish to hide it.

Qualifications, job titles and responsibility are most often exaggerated, often quite imaginatively. Phrases like "I did an MBA" or "When I studied for..." are designed to hide the fact they didn't complete the course and don't have the qualification. Elsewhere, candidates sometimes believe that their role was far wider than the title they had and give themselves the title they feel they should have had.

Less common is glossing over eligibility to work. In particular, there has been an assumption that citizens of all EU nations are automatically eligible to work in the UK. This is not the case. For instance, citizens of the so called ‘accession states' (broadly speaking, Eastern Europe) have additional requirements, so it is worth checking passports and confirming the rules via the immigration service website.

White lies?
I have read that because people tend to lie on applications and CVs, employers assume that everyone is lying, so candidates need to exaggerate to avoid being disadvantaged. I don't believe employers, as a rule, are that cynical and, realistically, they do have the opportunity to dig around to find the truth. So, candidates should be very circumspect when considering any kind of embellishment.

Structured interviews, document verification and reference checking are the surest ways of verifying candidate credentials. But far too many interviews are still conducted without adequate structure. A good structure could solve many of the queries. Drawing on competency-based interviewing techniques, employers can ask candidates about specific skills, responsibilities and achievements, pushing the candidate to describe how they achieved things or how numbers were made up. If specific qualifications are relevant and required for a role, ask to see the original certificates.

Reference checks
While reference checking is really the final and ultimate option to verify the candidate's claims, they are not without problems. A disgruntled former employer may have nothing good to say about the candidate and clearly they will not divulge anything that they consider commercially sensitive. It is important to take a balanced view and perhaps give the candidate the opportunity of answering doubts raised.

Always call for a reference. If you write a letter or email you risk receiving a templated response that tells you little more than the dates employed, the job title and absenteeism figures. Use the reference to verify information given by the candidate. Of course, if you launch straight into probing questions, the conversation is likely to be a short one. It is wise to start off with simple inoffensive questions.

If you are a candidate reading this, you should by now realise that if you lie on your CV, you will be found out sooner or later. If you don't think you'll get caught, here is another sobering thought - you've only to look at the numerous industry gatherings and how well people across many organisations know each other to see this is an incestuous industry. People talk and the amount and speed of information going around the means you can't get away with it for ever. Getting caught lying will trash your reputation and everyone will know it.

Dani Novick is managing director of Mercury Search and Selection, www.mercurysearch.co.uk.