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False Information on Resumes a Common Occurrence

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resumeBelieve it or not, providing false information on a resume is more common than many people might think. According to a survey conducted in July of 2012 by Accu-Screen, Inc., ADP, and The Society of Human Resource Managers, more than 50 percent of resumes and job applications had falsified information on them.

The exact percentage of resumes or applications that contained false information fell at 53 percent. That is quite a shocking number if you were not familiar with falsified data on resumes. What is even more shocking is that 70 percent of college students surveyed said  they would lie on a resume in order to obtain a job they want to work at.

The survey conducted also reported that three percent of job applicants had a misdemeanor record and seven percent of applicants had a felony record.

Overall, more than 78 percent of resumes are misleading. In that category, the misleading information on resumes includes false salary claims, wrong job descriptions, edited employment dates, false references, and fraudulent degrees.

The survey reported that 21 percent of respondents admitted to listing a degree on their resume that they did not actually earn. Twenty-nine percent of respondents changed the employment dates of jobs listed on their resumes while 40 percent of respondents had inflated the amount of money they earned at jobs listed on their resumes.

Thirty-three percent of respondents to this survey said that they provided inaccurate job descriptions on their resumes while 27 percent of respondents admitted to providing false references on their resumes.

Now, contrary to the data from this survey, AOL ran an online poll that included some 18,000 respondents. Of those, 9.5 percent said that they lied on resumes several times. For those who lied at least once on a resume, the result was 4.1 percent. For those who said they have never lied on a resume, but would consider it, the percentage came in at 12.9 percent. For those who claim they have never lied on a resume, the percentage hit 73.5.

So, though there is a discrepancy between the data reported by the AOL Jobs survey and the survey conducted in 2012 by the organizations mentioned above, it seems as though lying on resumes is more prominent than many think.

False Information on Resumes a Common Occurrence by
Authored by: Andrew Ostler

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