But they are not the only lies. Generally, Carol Ocampo, senior manager of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Page Group, identifies that candidates claim to have earned more or less money, depending on their intention.
“Some increase the value to be taken into account in the selection process; and we find candidates who even reduce it to adjust to what is offered. Aspects like having work teams (people) in charge are also quite common,” she says.
Lying in selection processes is quite common. At least 30% of the applicants omit or give ambiguous answers in the CV. Even 16% of Latino candidates consider it okay to lie about their work past.
Although this is also highly variable. Administrative assistant positions tend to have a higher lie rate than managerial positions, says Diego Duque, senior consultant for Healthcare and Life Sciences at Page Group.
And in addition to the lies in the CV, with the boom New deception practices by candidates emerged from the digital processes, including identity theft in online assessments. This dishonest act consists of the candidate requesting another person to partially or totally take the exams, the results of which will be evaluated by the companies to choose the person or not, says Fernando Calderón, managing director of the evaluation firm Midot México.
How to detect when a candidate is lying
The mechanisms vary depending on the recruiting firm. One of the techniques is to formulate similar questions in a different way to identify or detect changes in the candidate’s speech or even in her attitude.
In Factor RH, Vázquez says that they carry out different types of tests based on the profile they are looking for. This includes a technical knowledge test and a bank reconciliation, which is something very specific and necessary in the position to validate it.
When English is required, they perform two filters. The first is with two or three simple questions with which they can identify if the person has the knowledge. Then a second interview is done with business terms (always focused on the position) to assess the level of mastery.
In the first filter, “general” English is evaluated and in the second, grammatical structure, vocabulary, pronunciation and other relevant factors are studied in depth and evaluated to verify that professional domain is achieved.
They also do an investigation of work references with the previous jobs in which the candidate was. They ask for general information about the position, seniority, salary, but they also inquire about his specific performance.
“For the positions required by the client, we use confidence tests to identify deception (EyeDetect is one of them) that, through its eye Tracking Technology, records the behavior of the eyes during the test to evaluate the veracity of the answers”, he details.
This type of technology is based on the polygraph, says Calderón. With the rise of digitization in selection processes, the lie detector should also reach the digital sphere and today it is already a reality that recruiters resort to them to detect deception, through the screen.
“Evidently the pandemic had an important effect on these processes. Today more than ever it is important for companies to rely on additional tools to evaluate hundreds or thousands of candidates because reviewing the CV is no longer enough to get to know the applicants and choose the best talent”, comments the manager.
The cost of a bad hire
The poor selection of a candidate who seemed suitable impacts the results expected in the short term by the organization. This generates a greater adaptation curve that would have a direct impact on productivity, points out Ocampo. In addition, it is important to highlight the time it takes to identify that the role was not the right one and start the new search.
Many times it is believed that the greatest losses occur when you have someone who makes serious mistakes due to lack of knowledge that were not validated during the selection.
But the reality is that staff turnover has a very high cost for companies, from the search, training, learning curve and productivity lost while the vacancy was, as well as the onboarding process.
Calderón, on the other hand, emphasizes that a challenge for the human resources areas is to corroborate, through specific evaluations, the integrity of the person who will be hired, since currently ant thefts, the misuse of confidential information or the employer brand reach involve up to 10% of a company’s annual revenue.
“A bad candidate can affect the organizational climate and culture, so the comment I always make to our clients is that the selection process is the key to outstanding performance; You should never look for a good candidate, but rather the potential for each organization”, concludes Vazquez.