4 Sneaky Ways Candidates Trick Hiring Managers

Seeing the glass half-full isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unless you are hiring, and then optimism can hurt your hiring process. That’s because not all candidates have good intentions (cue the “dun dun dun” music).

The thing is, some candidates lie on their resumes, others give fake references and it’s not unusual to have some candidates that display multiple red flags!
As a hiring manager, it’s your duty to avoid hiring the wrong candidate (AKA a “Bad Hire”). By understanding the ways in which some candidates can trick you, your hiring process and employees will thank you.

Here’s 4 sneaky ways candidates trick hiring managers:

1. They lie about how long they’ve been at certain jobs
2. They put down their friends as references
3. They don’t have the skills they say they do
4. They lied about graduating college

Recognize any of these tricks? If you’ve hired before, you have probably had a candidate or two pull one over on you. Luckily, there are some solutions to making sure none of these happen to you and it all starts with verifying your candidates.
First, always reference check your candidates to verify their employment times. You can use reference check technology such as SkillSurvey or you can do it manually and call all of the candidate’s previous employers. While you are conducting reference checks, look up all of the references on LinkedIn or the company website to ensure their title matches what the candidate stated it was.


Second, give the candidate skills tests that relate to the jobs the candidate will be performing. For example, if on their resume they say they are skilled with Microsoft Office, give the candidate tests using Microsoft Office, so they have to prove their knowledge.


Third, always run background checks on final round candidates. A good background check will tell you if the candidate graduated college and if they have a valid social security number; two very important pieces of information to know.

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