Half of jobseekers admit to lying on their CV to beat their competition to a job
Just over half of job candidates feel it is necessary to lie on a CV to get an interview due to high levels of competition, according to research by job board CV-Library.
Following a study in which the job board found over a quarter (28.6%) of UK job hunters lie on their CVs, a CV-Library spokesperson told Recruiter the percentage of people admitting to lying on a CV correlated with the most competitive regions for jobs.
Using ratios of CVs against current jobs over the lifetime of the job board’s database and number of CVs against current jobs for May, Scotland was ranked as the most competitive place to find a job, followed by Wales, then the North-West.
Those regions also appeared in the top of the fibbers list with 59.5% of Welsh candidates admitting to lying on their CVs, 57.1% of Scottish candidates and 55.2% of candidates from the North-West. The South-East also appeared near the top of this list with 55.6% of candidates admitting to lying.
But it seems even in the South-West, the least competitive region, candidates still felt like they had to lie – 45.8% admitted to doing so.
The findings prompted CV-Library managing director Lee Biggins to issue a warning to recruiters to be on their guard.
“Although the figures show high volumes of candidates across the UK relate CV lies to job competition, it’s particularly interesting to see these levels increase in areas where the candidate to job ratio is higher. Recruiters in these regions should make extra efforts to be on their guard and seek advice to help overcome these issues.”
The study surveyed over 2,000 job hunters.
It also found 75% of jobseekers believed it was a company’s responsibility to uncover a lie and of those that admitted to lying, 91.2% said their bosses never found out.
Of those surveyed, 17.3% said they would lie in an interview.
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