Dilemma I lied at an interview and now I am worried.

TrikerAndBiker

Spendless wrote:

I wouldn't worry about it. I also think you can fill in a P46 instead which doesn't show your previous earnings,can anyone tell me if this is correct

The P46 won't show what you have earned to date however the P6(T) that your new firm will receive from the Inland Revenue after they have submitted your P46 will show your earnings. I wouldnt worry too much as most Payroll Departments wouldnt take much notice of your previous earnings, and it was only a slight bending of the truth

amanda40

By the time the tax office receive your P46 and process it - It will probably be too late in the tax year for you Inland Revenue Office to issue a code anyway. The last code are issued beginning to mid March, so they won't find out your details from that.

tomstickland

Don't worry about it. How could you live on £12K anyway?

tomstickland

Don't worry about it. How could you live on £12K anyway?

inkie

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Don't worry about it. How could you live on £12K anyway?

A lot of people do, and quite well!
Have you considered what will happen when they contact your present employer for a reference, and ask them to confirm the salary/grade that you are on at the moment - you will lose all credibility with potential new employer for being deceitful. It would hardly oresnt you as model employee. I would come clean.

amanda40

What can employers (previous) actually divulge in a reference these days? I work in the Inland Revenue and even if someone is sacked, we would still get a ref confirming when we started and when we left and not the reasons for leaving- apparently it is in breach of something or other to tell them any more. Not sure if this is correct or not, but I am sure someone will confirm. You could say that when you said you were on 16K - you were , they reduced just after you said that - I certainly wouldn't worry about it. All employers must have a rough guide of what they pay, and would pay under if they could get away with it, but unlikely to pay over.

peter999

TheShadow wrote:

My P45 wont match up with my salary and if anyone checks it will be obvious that I have lied.

What would you do in this situation ?

Come clean and risk looking like a liar or roll with it?

Your previous salary & earnings are YOUR business, not your next employers.
A P45 merely smooths the transition from one employer to another with your tax code & other details.

If you are that worried, your next employer can contact tax office or you contact tax office, I believe.
Although you may be on wrong tax code with new employer for a period.

This is a legitimate situation to be in, where you don't want next employer to see your previous earnings.

Contact Tax Office & they will tell you what to do.

peter999

Ps: there was similiar thread somewhere.

newmum1

Surely it would depend on how long you had worked for the previous company, if you had worked there since the beginning of the last tax year then yes your p45 wont match but if you started after then surely yes it would be lower but i doubt that they would even be bothered to work out what you earned stick with what you said, if you get found out then say that you started on the higher package and you could just make out that you 'forgot' that you salary have decreased.

recovering_spendaholic

I was a HR manager in a government department for 14 years and always used to look at new recruits 'salaries on P45's and in many many cases staff recruited from outside (ie not internal transfer or promotion) bullsh**ed up their previous roles and salaries (on more than one occasion by £10,000 a year) and I always pointed out the anomaly on the P45 to the new line manager and never once did the manager give a toss. I wouldn't worry about it - just say you were only on probation for a while before your salary went up, or say that this would have been your salary once you had gone through the next increment. References tend not to ask what salary a person was on, so it is unlikely your new employer will find out from that route.

dag_2

I'll weigh in on the above too - there are far more serious things you could lie about than your previous salary.

And besides, there could be all sorts of reasons. How would they know that it was an actual salary cut, and that you weren't on the same pro-rata salary but had temporarily reduced your hours to look after a sick relative? You can't tell these things from a P45. And it's quite permissible not to want to mention sick relatives in an interview, out of respect for that relative's privacy.

If you've lied about academic or professional qualifications, then that's a little more serious. It's even more serious if you have forged certificates to back up these bogus qualifications. And if your new job includes safety-critical tasks for which you are legally required to have those qualifications, then that's very serious indeed!

But a mistake on the salary? I think you can be too perfectionist about an interview. Maybe we make mistakes in interviews, but it's equally likely that the person interviewing us has misinterpreted something we say. If the interviewer goes away with the wrong idea, then they're generally not interested in whether it's your fault or their fault.

Once they've offered the job, it's unlikely they would change their mind with new information. Once you've actually started, it becomes even less likely - because sacking you and hiring someone else would probably mean having to go through the whole advertising and interviewing process all over again. And as long as you're "good enough", they're not going to bother. You don't have to be perfect.