Is it true that it is relatively uncommon for an employer to actually check the information provided on a résumé to see if it is factually correct? How often is this done??
Thanks.
A headhunter who once worked in HR for then First Union Bank told me that they would periodically pull resuemes from files and verify degree earned, positions held, and hire/termination dates. I guess a lot of people lie about how long they were on jobs…they actually fied a few people because their dates were off.
I can’t give actual cites as to statistics, but I know many companies do check for things like dates of employment, educational information like dates attended and degree attained, and, if the person has listed service organizations, verifying memberships and positions held. This helps narrow the field by eliminating those who practice “resume inflation” or outright fraud. The rest, like references and specific job duties, is checked later.
Robin
Depends a lot on the employer and the position being applied for. Obviously if you apply for a government job requiring a security clearance they’re going to do a lot more checking than if you’re applying to flip burgers at Mickey D’s.
Also depends on the size of the company and the resources available for checking things like this.
Security clearance is obtained through a separate process to the actual job application, in the UK at least. I was already under contract in a previous job before having to apply for security clearance.
Getting security clearance is a matter of filling in a form which asks such wonderful questions as:
“Are you, or have you ever been, a member of a terrorist agency?”
Tricky stuff.
But apparently not if you got to work at the NY Times.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40536-2003May10.html
It’s pretty common although the company usually hires the checking out to an outside firm who does the research and supplies a report. I landed a new job six months ago and they gave me a copy of my report when I started. In my case they check degrees earned, criminal background (none) and employment dates.
Haj
It’s really not as inane as it seems. In the US, anyway, such a question would give an employer grounds to terminate the employment process (or the employee, if the person was hired) on the basis of falsification of the application.
Robin
In my experience yes they do check.
I know of three cases personally where either a job offer was recinded, or a person fired for false statements on a resume. (no not me, but people who were applying at my employer)
None of these were government security type jobs.
YMMV
If I am part of the interview loop, I always check. You’ll be happy to learn that frequently people over my head have given the nod to folks who blatantly lied. I’m not talking about fudging the scope of responsibilities. I mean flat-out lies.
Incidentally, if you check resumes and find errors, you may want to double-check with the candidate. Sometimes people list their jobs history with major companies but fail to note that they were working as contractors.
Some companies do more than just check your resume, they’ll require a complete background check. I believe they can’t unless you give them written permission, but it’s not exactly going to get you hired to turn it down.
You probably won’t ever hear that they do that, until a waiver pops up when you’re signing the various paperwork once you’ve accepted the job offer.
Some industries are legally required to do background checks, for ex airline employees have to pass 10-year background check.
Don’t worry about the truth if applying at George Tech, but Nortre Dame might be different:
http://www.sportslawnews.com/current/Mark’sViewNotreDameResignation.htm
It may also depend on how big the ‘community’ is that you’re applying within. There are some trades in which almost everyone knows each other, or at least ‘knows someone who knows someone’, so that the chances that your interviewer will know somebody at the companies listed on your resume are significant, making the odds of getting caught fibbing rather high.
I’ll second that last post. In some professions yer book-learnin’ and world travels don’t mean anything, and consequently neither does what you write on a resume; as long as you show up and work as hard or harder than everyone else that’s enough - you can’t really get into trouble not having a background as the duties are so simple and easy to learn. This is especially true in small ‘communities’ as Sublight point out. Ones where the same 20 guys get all the contracts for decades on end and only hire their buddies nephews and so on.
This doesn’t mean that the only places that don’t check you out are slack-ass no competition jobs; they can be very hard to get into, and by the time you do (like 10 years worth of volunteering and leg-humping) they know you already. And of course the other end of the spectrum has the employer doing everything but sending a PI to track you for a month. Most places will do some checking, and a few won’t.
I know of at least one occasion where a resume was checked years after the fact for the express purpose of creating grounds to terminate an employee. Lying on a resume is like tying a sword above your head by a single horsehair.