AS Travel Weekly’s regular People profile proves, quite a few people admit to telling a little white lie on their first job application or CV.
But while we may raise a smile when directors or managers of big travel companies admit to a small untruth they told many years ago, anyone considering doing the same nowadays should think again.
Companies are wising up to the fact that a CV may not accurately describe the candidate – and they are taking a very dim view of people who get caught out.
When travel PR specialist Affinity Consulting advertised for a company director to act as a number two to managing director Steve Dunne, the agency was flooded with CVs from seemingly highly qualified candidates with bags of relevant experience.
But within minutes of interviewing, Dunne became very disillusioned.
“It was obvious to me that a number of people had used professional CVwriters who advertise in the personal columns of various publications,” he said.
“They can polish up even the most inane fact to make it look good.
“These people did not have the greatest track record, yet they greatly exaggerated certain information and totally omitted other things to get through the preliminary round of the selection process, and get them an interview.”
Of nine people called for interview, Dunne said four had nowhere near the experience they had claimed on their CVs.
He said:”It became obvious within 5mins they were out of their depth. They clogged up the system, and wasted my time.”
Other companies are beginning to investigate claims made on job applications.
Going Places human resources director Julie Morosco employs a strict checking procedure she learned when she worked as a head-hunter.
Morosco said: “For senior level appointments, I do very thorough checks which involve going back to the educational establishments and checking out qualifications they claim to have achieved.
“We do not automatically seek references from the people which potential employees put down, and we often delve in other areas which are mentioned on their CV too, such as membership of professional bodies.
“It is extremely time consuming, especially getting through to registrars at college, but I do it without fail, because is is extremely important.”
She said candidates often lie about the class of university degree they achieved, and some have made up other qualifications.
“Often people do have the degree that they claim to have, but the class of degree they actually achieved is not as high as the one they put on their CV.
“People also stick in MBAs which they never achieved. These are very easy to check out.
“To me it is just basic best practice, and it is what candidates should expect to have done to them.”
A number of organisations have sprung up to check out the credentials of candidates’ CVs, including Personnel Risk Management, based in Brighton, which has recently received an enquiry from a large travel company.
Operations director David Blench said: “Employers are becoming more aware of the need to do checks, but if you have a large human resources department, referencing is very time consuming.
“We have fully trained staff dedicated purely to look into someone’s background.
“Very often, people bump up their degree grade. Sometimes they lie about previous employment, and we get a letter from a company denying all knowledge of ever employing someone we are checking out. “We also check out addresses of companies given for references. People have been known to give a made-up company at the address of a friend.
“With computers these days it is relatively easy to devise a company letterhead which looks authentic.”