background checks in jobs?

myright

Has anybody ever lied on their CV?

Do most organisations do background checks, as in checking previous employers? i.e dates etc.

i'm asking because I have a mate who has lied quite abit on his cv. He's put in a few extra jobs on his cv that he has never done! I can't believe he can get away with this?

DVardysShadow

myright wrote: »

Has anybody ever lied on their CV?

Does the Pope's CV say he is a Catholic?

persa

myright wrote: »

i'm asking because I have a mate who has lied quite abit on his cv. He's put in a few extra jobs on his cv that he has never done! I can't believe he can get away with this?

Some people get away with all kinds of things in life.

Rest assured, if you try to do the same because you know of someone managing to get away with all kinds of lies, sod's law, you will get found out not him. If you're applying for a job, you won't get the offer and will get blacklisted from ever working for that company. If you're in a job, you'll get sacked. Ouch. Not great for the CV.

Your friend is an idiot, but all you can do is carry on with your life, warm and fuzzy in the knowledge that you're doing the right thing and maybe, one day, his lies will come back to bite him. He may think the risk is worth it - maybe it's been worth it for him so far - but it rarely is.

The fact that you're so incredulous about this suggests you're not a natural born liar, so chances are you'd struggle to pull it off anyway. Leaving being an idiot to the professional idiots!

As for background checks, up until now I only had to provide evidence of my qualifications. In my current job however, I had to provide a 5 year checkable work history and residence history. That was an incredibly painful experience - had to list everything I'd done to the exact day! - and entirely unexpected. If I'd lied, I would have been found out. Some companies now go through this screening process, others don't.

Deep_In_Debt

My current employers wanted a 5 year checkable working history and they did check as did the agency I temped with prior to getting my current job. I'd been in my previous employment for 11 years so it wasn't a problem.

DCFC79

myright wrote: »

Has anybody ever lied on their CV?

Do most organisations do background checks, as in checking previous employers? i.e dates etc.

i'm asking because I have a mate who has lied quite abit on his cv. He's put in a few extra jobs on his cv that he has never done! I can't believe he can get away with this?

depends on the employer, some might only check say the last 2 jobs and others will ask for 5 years worth and check it thouroughly

cr1mson

Think it all depends. I recently read of fraud case where someone had got a job after committing fraud elsewhere and then went onto commit fraud at new employer. Guessing they didn't!

Frustrating for those of us who are struggling to get a job if someone like that can! Especially as one of the reasons I was knocked back from a job is because I couldn't provide a work history for previous 5 years as taken a career break to look after kids.

C

dandelionclock30

Anything to do with kids they check very throughly and financial jobs as well. I still know people who have managed to get away with it but they usually get a friend to lie for them e.g I worked at my friends nursery for 5 years etc.
I often wonder about self employed people how do they manage when they want to get a paid job with no references work history etc? do they get an accountant or clients to vouch for them?

myright

so how do they check? just contact the companies and ask if they had worked there?

i'm not frustrated with my friend, I'm just shocked how the system hasnt caught him!

an9i77

I'd say it's common for employers to check either last two employers or if the last two is less than two years, up to two years. Usually all reference requests will be sent by the HR department to the nominated referee (in a big company these may go straight to HR) and the info will then be passed back to HR who will check it, and raise any concerns to the manager who made the decision to recruit. Agreed that in certain industries a five year check is now becoming mandatory - this includes financial services, airline industry and many where kids are involved. When I worked for an airline, they were extra tight cos of terrorism threat, and applicants had to account for the past five years of their life, any gap of more than two weeks had to be referenced. So if somone had gone travelling for example, and couldn't provide evidence, they would get their offer of employment refused.
Having said that some places are extremely lax, where i work for example they did not take references for me, even though they were supposed to, probably because I was joining the HR team so I fell out of the loop, maybe they expected me to do it myself or something!!

dandelionclock30

One of my friends is a senior speech therapist and she forged her reference to get on the Speech therapy course in London.This was before the days of email and all reference requests were snail mail.Her friend worked in the office and when the person from the course in London phoned up the referee she said the person was on sabatical!.They got university headed notepaper from another tutor who they blackmailed to shop to Waterstones and the University for stealing lots of books.My friend wrote the reference herself and the other friend who worked in the office got it stamped and sent off with forged signiture!
She has enjoyed a long and successful career!

LadyMissA

myright wrote: »

so how do they check? just contact the companies and ask if they had worked there?

i'm not frustrated with my friend, I'm just shocked how the system hasnt caught him!

The system? It's only the system in place at the company you get the job with. Some companies only check the last employer where others will check all and some will get personal references on your too from someone you may have known in a work capacity who you still know now but no longer work with.