Trend of lying job seekers is leading to underqualified workers
No matter how hard the job hunt becomes or how vexing job requirements are, playing around with the truth in job applications is not recommended.
Some desperate Australians are lying on their applications to help expedite job-hunting.
Finder research shows about one in six Australians claim to be under-qualified for their current jobs, with 13 per cent of Australians having lied on a resume or during a job interview to secure a role.
On the most extreme end, 4 per cent of workers admitted they had “no idea” what they’re doing at work.
Finder personal finance expert Angus Kidman said the results were not surprising given job seekers had to advertise themselves in their applications – and the world of advertising was not always truthful.
An increasingly competitive job market may also cause some to bend the truth; Seek’s latest employment report found job ads on the platform fell 10.7 per cent in October compared to the same time the year before.
“In some sectors, it’s very competitive, and you feel like anything that’s going to disqualify you can be problematic,” Kidman said.
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“You apply for hundreds of [jobs], it’s all online, you very rarely get acknowledgment of whether you’ve been successful or unsuccessful, so it feels very disconnected. So I can understand that it feels like, ‘Well, I’m barely being assessed by people, why do I have to apply the highest ethical standards here?’.”
“[Lying during the application process is] not something I can endorse, but at the same time, it’s not something I personally could condemn, because job hunting is hard and people will do whatever they feel that they need to do.”
Finder research also showed men (14 per cent) were slightly more likely than women (11 per cent) to lie during the job application process.
Kidman said this could be linked to differences in socialised confidence as well as the pressure women face to do better than men in order to be considered equal.
Not always a pay-off
Lying does not guarantee success, especially if it becomes obvious to an employer that the new recruit is not able to do the job.
For larger companies, there are also likely systems to catch any falsehoods.
Angela Knox, professor of management at the University of Sydney Business School, said HR practitioners were aware that there could be deceptions in the job application process.
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To combat this, they often have independent checks to ensure selected candidates actually hold claimed qualifications or accreditations before they are hired.
But smaller employers may not have the resources or experience to conduct such checks.
Hirers asking for too much
Knox said some job advertisements could do with a rethink given some ask candidates to meet “unnecessary” requirements.
“Sometimes … when you look at the job in detail, there’s no reason for the qualification or the accreditation to actually be held by the candidate in order to perform that job,” she said.
“That may be one reason that candidates don’t have the qualifications or the accreditations, and they can see that they’re capable of doing the job, so they apply and fudge it a little.
“I would highlight that HR departments reconsider how they’re writing job descriptions and think really carefully about whether those kinds of details are fundamental to the job because they might be missing out on really high-quality candidates.”
But no matter how hard the job hunt becomes or how vexing job requirements are, playing around with the truth in job applications is not recommended.
“Deception is never good, and being a new employee who has deceived their way into an organisation is not a good foundation for a working relationship,” Knox said.
“It is important to establish and maintain trust, and being honest about things like qualifications is integral to that.”
With Finder research showing 70 per cent of Australians do not have an emergency savings fund, Kidman said when possible, you should build up enough savings to get through a couple of months of unemployment to reduce future pressure to lie in job applications.
