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Question

Recently I did some interviews for a position in our company in another country. Amazingly all candidates lied in their resume. Most of them did badly at interview, but one guy did ok. I think he is a level below the required knowledge, but after seeing all bad people (and on little pushing of my managers) I said "yes" to the hire. I know Joel suggested to say NO in such cases, but he was the only who did OK.

But he also lied in his resume. Saying you did something for 5 years, and not knowing much about it, is a red flag.

Is hiring a person that was caught lying in their resume a big risk?

EDIT:

We do have 6 months trial period, but it cost time, money and nerves to replace people, and it is something I would like to avoid.

Saying you did something for 5 years and then not knowing anything about it doesn't mean they lied on their resume. It might be that they're just not up to the standard you expect, which is a reason to not hire them... PS, you don't need to specify the country, people not knowing what you might expect happens all over the world. — Feb 16 '16 at 8:37
Did you actually catch him lying? Or do you just assume? If it was in the UK, and claiming falsely that he was lying in his resume could get you into court for libel, would you still say he was lying? — Feb 16 '16 at 8:49
In other words, you don't know that he was lying, and you are trying to destroy a person's employment based on unwarranted assumptions. — Feb 16 '16 at 9:07
Why is it necessary to claim he was lying? Is it not enough to say that he is not up to your level of expectations (i.e. the truth)? The same with the other candidates in your first paragraph. All of them lied? The way you have framed this situation is a bit incredible. — Feb 16 '16 at 9:32
So everyone who doesn't know what you think they should know is a liar? You must be a terrible boss then, I should remember not to work for you. — Feb 16 '16 at 15:14

Joe Strazzere 222k103649916 · Answer 1 · 2016-02-16 12:30:03Z

Is hiring a person that was caught lying in their resume a big risk?

Hiring a liar is a huge risk. If someone feels free to lie during an interview, it's reasonable to assume they will feel free to lie in other contexts - perhaps one that is critical to your business.

That said, you don't really know that this person lied. You are assuming he lied because his knowledge didn't match his claimed experience in one particular technology.

You should have addressed that during reference checks, or certifications, or by other means. It's unfortunate, that you decided to just take the best of a (lying) bad lot. Hopefully, this won't come back to haunt you.

If you are seeing only liars when you interview for a position, then something systematic may be going on here. Perhaps your job requirements don't make any sense. Perhaps your company has a reputation for not caring about the truth. Perhaps your recruiters don't know how to find good candidates. If you care about this, you may wish to dig deeper and find out what's going on.

"Perhaps your job requirements don't make any sense. Perhaps your company has a reputation for not caring about the truth. Perhaps your recruiters don't know how to find good candidates." - Ouch! — Feb 16 '16 at 16:03
I agree 100%, what kind of business doesn't take honesty into consideration, one that probably doesn't worry about it, perhaps they're dishonest as well. — Feb 16 '16 at 16:29

score 7 · Answer 2 · 2016-02-16 16:41:47Z

As a recent graduate, I can soundly confirm that doing something for 5 years doesn't make you proficient at it. Was he lying? Probably not. He probably has 5 years experience working with a technology in a manner that didn't make him an expert with it. We get it, the job market is tough and having documented exposure makes you a stronger candidate. The fact he was able to stumble through a demo better than everyone else means he's probably also more trainable, and also the best bet out of a pool of candidates singing the same song. If his experience isn't on-par with the company's expectation you have one option given you already offered him employment: train him and then put the training to the test. If he wants the job bad enough his 6mo probation serve as the make or break period.

In the future you need to address the problem ahead of time: the guy stumbles through a technical demo: why? Ask him exactly what his experience was for 5yrs using [insert method] and you'll probably go "Aha!" as to why.

e.g. 5yr experience in an analytical lab that uses gas chromatography. You worked in QC microbiology and occasionaly operated the GC to support operations, but never analysed the data. You write on your resume that you have 5yr experience in GC instrumentation, then, but in an interview question about analysing GC data you flounder, raising a red flag. Or even vice versa, you analysed the data but never operated the machine, still a red flag if it comes up. You can easily be trained either way, however, but most interviewers will never ask your exact experience unless you tell them.

agreed - time (experience) does not always breed proficiency - I knew a developer who'd been developing for 15 years, but had never got past basic proficiency because he'd never spent time improving — Feb 17 '16 at 0:06

score 5 · Answer 3 · 2016-02-16 10:50:05Z

Is hiring a person that was caught lying in their resume a big risk?

Yes it is, you have hired a dishonest person, there is no way to interpret that positively. Whether it works out or not in this specific instance is immaterial.

Sometimes and in some places positions are very hard to fill properly because the human resources just are not available. So management might be advertising jobs with unrealistic expectations because the skill set just doesn't exist in terms of unemployed people looking for a job. I come across this problem quite a lot. And sometimes you are basically forced to take a risk.

I would prefer an honest person who could be trained up, than one who is lying. So I would watch them very carefully since it's a fait accompli. The risk your company took is huge, I hope it works out.

I have recently been in interviews where every single candidate was lying. The guy who was eventually hired is now in jail for fraud (unrelated to the job). Leaving a huge and expensive mess since he didn't do a lot of the work he was supposed to have for several months. However he was the only even borderline qualified person at the interviews so we took a chance, unfortunately it blew up in our faces.

This was a worst case scenario, other risks have worked out ok. And others were initially problematic but resolvable through training and/or eventual demotion. It's a gamble.

gazzz0x2z 5,93621634 · Answer 4 · 2016-02-16 08:48:17Z

At best, it's a risky move. Less risky, because it's easier to fire people in India, but still. Training him is gonna cost you a lot of money, and if you have to fire him later, it's definitively lost money.

It's also lost time, but as you had no good candidate, I'd say the time would have been lost anyways.

Now the question to ask yourself is : "how to find better-suited candidates?" Answer can be on several levels. First thing is to make the job more appealing(though it's completely firm-dependant, so I won't enter details here). Second thing it to go fishing in other waters. Have you tried your country's best universities? Or the professional salons of your domain of activity? Third thing is to try to target specific people, with tools like linkedin(if it's not common in India, try to find an equivalent).

Because the real problem is not that you took a risk with the less horrible candidate. The real problem is that you had only horrible candidates.

I am only a developer, doing some interviews - not working in HR. I am neather posting job adds, nor searching for new candidates. Why I accepted this guy was mostly because others were horible. Plus managers were a bit pushy. — Feb 16 '16 at 9:01
"Why I accepted this guy was mostly because others were horible." That's a really, really, really bad reason to hire someone. I can't emphasise this enough. Hiring the "least bad" candidate drags your entire team down. If you're not getting good candidates, you should stand up to your management and say "none of these are good enough; find me some better candidates". — Feb 16 '16 at 9:56
Too many hiring managers get stuck in the mindset of "this is the pool of candidates that applied, I must choose from them" rather than using the option of rejecting them all and continuing to advertise for applicants. I have almost been a victim of this, convincing my boss at the last minute that its better to struggle a little for a few more months rather than prop up an underperforming new hire. — Feb 16 '16 at 12:54

Lilienthalâ™¦ 53.9k36183218 · Answer 5 · 2016-02-16 12:19:34Z

Was hiring a person that was subsequently caught lying in their resume a bad move?

Of course it was, because you failed to catch the lie and you now have someone on your team that you would otherwise never have hired. It's also someone you cannot afford to keep as lying on your resume is such a strong indicator of bad judgement and unethical behaviour that it will poison all further interaction you have with this person, even if he does an okay job.

I'd only consider not firing an employee who's been caught outright lying on his resume if:

he's not client-facing,

he recognises the gravity of his lie and is abjectly apologetic,

he's otherwise shown to be reliable and trustworthy (good people sometimes make bad decisions, especially when in a long job search)

he's doing stellar work in his role, and

the lie won't affect future projects (using the technology/skill he lied about)

Note that omitting past jobs, degrees or whatever does not qualify as misrepresentation here. A resume is a marketing document and candidates are expected to leave off things that don't improve their profile. I'm talking purely about misrepresenting skills, work history or education. An honest mistake or typo such as listing a skill with an incorrect experience level can also be understandable because that error should have been caught by the interviewer if it was important.

Now, let's look at your specific situation, which isn't as black-and-white as you think. Since you were the hiring manager you are also at fault here. From what I can tell you realised in the interview that this person didn't have the required skill or experience in something that's a critical component of the role. Even if he listed it as part of his responsibilities over a 5-year period, a resume can't be exhaustive and his involvement with that skill could have been relatively minor or tangential but still worth pointing out. It was your job to dig into his experience here and figure out if he has what it takes to excel in the role. You either didn't do that and resorted to wishful thinking ("he should do fine with 5 years' experience!") or you caved to pressure from above to make a bad hire when you should have restarted the hiring process with an entirely new candidate pool.

While this is harsh and probably not what you wanted to hear, it's frankly bad management. You have a duty to your company and your team to hire the best person you can find when you're filling a position. There is no reason to settle for an unqualified candidate, especially given today's job market which has an abundant supply of qualified candidates for almost every job.¹

If you figured out this person was lying before hiring him but still offered him a job because you had to fill the position then that's a million times worse. The cost of a bad hire is incredibly high: aside from the salary, the cost of the opportunity cost of not having a qualified person in the role.

^{1 - If you aren't given a realistic budget to attract qualified candidates then that's an entirely different problem, but I won't go into that here.}

Re "listing a skill with an incorrect experience level", how can you objectively determine experience level, and convey that in perhaps one line of a resume? I've encountered (far too many) people who honestly thought they were expert in X, but fell short of what I'd consider adequate, and a few modest types who'd describe themselves as "fairly competent" when they were experts by my standards. — Feb 16 '16 at 19:26
@jamesqf "because that error should have been caught by the interviewer if it was important". In other words, it's the interviewer's job to determine the skill level for important qualifications. Many people won't list an experience "level" either. — Feb 16 '16 at 20:52
Sure, a good interviewer should have caught the different perception of skills, but it seems in this case, the interviewer didn't. So (by my reading of the question, at least) instead of accepting the blame for his faulty interviewing, he's trying to shift it to the person he hired. — Feb 17 '16 at 4:24
@jamesqf Well, yes, but I make it a point to answer what people should be doing instead of condoning bad management. :) — Feb 17 '16 at 10:33
Well, so am I. I just think the problem is not what the OP says it is, the job applicant did not lie, and the OP should accept responsibility for his poor interviewing skills instead of trying to pass the blame. — Feb 17 '16 at 22:26

user8365 · Answer 6 · 2016-02-16 13:35:33Z

You may have the scenario where it may be all right to hire someone who lied on an application. Apparently, in this particular culture/industry, everyone is doing it. There is no lying in Poker, only bluffing. It is looked at as trying to be competitive. The consensus may be this practice is understood by those doing the hiring, so they have a fudge factor. My advice would have been to try and find a few more applicants and see if any of them lie. Who knows, you may find one.

Everyone lies and few people admit it. If you dig deep enough, you'll find their definition is relative to acceptable practices of lying and in some cases they don't see leaving information out as lying. The job world is no different. The final offer can have a follow-up offer. If they "require" five years of experience, most advice is to apply even if you have four because everyone knows, if they think you're the best candidate, they'll make an exception.

You'd think a lawyer wrote or at least influenced many job posts. Does a candidate really have to meet all the requirements? Fine, lower the requirement the best candidate is deficient. There are a few industries that are regulated and require a change to be reposted for a certain amount of time before hiring. That's not the case in most places. I had a boss that started every meeting he ever held on time; he had a mechanical watch and was always able to turn back the time on it to suit his needs. What time is it=the same time on your boss's watch.

Kennah 1,783314 · Answer 7 · 2016-02-16 19:59:40Z

It is said there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Most of us have probably heard this clichÃƒÂ©, but I cite it because I think it's important to the conversation. If one got extremely meta, then probably everyone has lied during an interview.

If one were asked during an interview, "Why do you want to leave your current position?", the full and completely honest answer might cover five points and take six to eight minutes to answer. Three of the points are considered positive, one is considered neutral, and one is considered negative. You start talking about positive point number one, segue into positive point two, then stop talking. If they press for more info, you raise positive point three. You stop talking, and the interviewer is happy.

Because you failed to raise the neutral and the negative point, did you lie? In my view, no. You answered the question to the interviewer's satisfaction, which is what most people want. Most people, sitting on either side of an interview, do not hold Fifth Level Black Belts in Grammarian Jiu Jitsu. Also, most people don't want to hear someone drone on for six to eight minutes answering a question.

Now, let's say the interviewer pressed you with a follow up question of, "Thank you for your answer. It's been my experience that no one leaves a job, of their own accord, unless there are some negative aspects to that job. Please talk about the negative reasons why you want to leave your current position." I have at times been asked more probing questions such as, "I feel like there may be other reasons why you're wanting to leave your current position." Coworkers over the years have also had these experiences. At that point, they are asking to hear the neutral and negative reasons, so if you don't share those then you are lying.

You said something that caught my attention. You said, "I think he is a level below the required knowledge". There are many adjectives in the English language for levels of expertise. In purely alphabetic order, some of these include: Advanced, Beginner, Experienced, Expert, Intermediate, Newbie, Novice, Proficient, Rookie, Seasoned, Senior, Skilled, Skillful, Talented

If a person called herself an Expert, but your definition of Expert is different from hers, then the two of you have a different definition of Expert. However, I would not say that the person lied.

If a person said they had five years of experience in a particular technology, but in adding up the months and years they worked with the particular technology, it was really only four years and ten months, did they lie? Technically yes, but how far from the truth were they when they were estimating in their head and concluded they had five years of experience? Conversely, if it was really one year and ten months, then their estimation skills might not be to blame and they were in fact lying.

You have to analyze and assess each individual situation and determine what was the real harm or foul. I do not believe it's as simple as you caught them in a lie so terminate them.

NotVonKaiser 6,5051533 · Answer 8 · 2016-02-16 15:54:59Z

While I am admittedly a little bit skeptical that "lying" is the correct choice of words here, I feel like I need to weigh in with the option that you ought to use your probationary period on the guy. It is entirely possible that you are right, he just plain doesn't know what he's doing, and you need to cut bait. That ought to be almost as obvious in 6 months' time as it is now. On the other hand, if this person worked with a product for several years but has not worked with it in a while, it may take them a while to get up to snuff.

In any case, there's no point, either, in providing this person with the full 6 months to grant themselves enough rope to hang themselves with. Once you've made a determination one way or the other, feel free to act on it. Some guys need a bit of time to get started. Some guys never do get it. If this is a developer job (and from checking on Joe's link, it sounds like it might be) it's not out of the ordinary at all to actually use the probationary period to determine if a person is up to snuff (then again, it's not out of the ordinary to have 10 interviews and zero qualified candidates, so there is that as well).

Yes. I could truthfully say that I have 10 years writing FORTRAN (and reading other people's code, which is much harder), but I sure couldn't do it effectively now without at least a couple months refresher. — Feb 17 '16 at 4:30

Joe Strazzere 222k103649916 · Answer 9 · 2016-02-16 12:30:03Z

Is hiring a person that was caught lying in their resume a big risk?

Hiring a liar is a huge risk. If someone feels free to lie during an interview, it's reasonable to assume they will feel free to lie in other contexts - perhaps one that is critical to your business.

That said, you don't really know that this person lied. You are assuming he lied because his knowledge didn't match his claimed experience in one particular technology.

You should have addressed that during reference checks, or certifications, or by other means. It's unfortunate, that you decided to just take the best of a (lying) bad lot. Hopefully, this won't come back to haunt you.

If you are seeing only liars when you interview for a position, then something systematic may be going on here. Perhaps your job requirements don't make any sense. Perhaps your company has a reputation for not caring about the truth. Perhaps your recruiters don't know how to find good candidates. If you care about this, you may wish to dig deeper and find out what's going on.

"Perhaps your job requirements don't make any sense. Perhaps your company has a reputation for not caring about the truth. Perhaps your recruiters don't know how to find good candidates." - Ouch! — Feb 16 '16 at 16:03
I agree 100%, what kind of business doesn't take honesty into consideration, one that probably doesn't worry about it, perhaps they're dishonest as well. — Feb 16 '16 at 16:29

score 7 · Answer 10 · 2016-02-16 16:41:47Z

As a recent graduate, I can soundly confirm that doing something for 5 years doesn't make you proficient at it. Was he lying? Probably not. He probably has 5 years experience working with a technology in a manner that didn't make him an expert with it. We get it, the job market is tough and having documented exposure makes you a stronger candidate. The fact he was able to stumble through a demo better than everyone else means he's probably also more trainable, and also the best bet out of a pool of candidates singing the same song. If his experience isn't on-par with the company's expectation you have one option given you already offered him employment: train him and then put the training to the test. If he wants the job bad enough his 6mo probation serve as the make or break period.

In the future you need to address the problem ahead of time: the guy stumbles through a technical demo: why? Ask him exactly what his experience was for 5yrs using [insert method] and you'll probably go "Aha!" as to why.

e.g. 5yr experience in an analytical lab that uses gas chromatography. You worked in QC microbiology and occasionaly operated the GC to support operations, but never analysed the data. You write on your resume that you have 5yr experience in GC instrumentation, then, but in an interview question about analysing GC data you flounder, raising a red flag. Or even vice versa, you analysed the data but never operated the machine, still a red flag if it comes up. You can easily be trained either way, however, but most interviewers will never ask your exact experience unless you tell them.

agreed - time (experience) does not always breed proficiency - I knew a developer who'd been developing for 15 years, but had never got past basic proficiency because he'd never spent time improving — Feb 17 '16 at 0:06

score 5 · Answer 11 · 2016-02-16 10:50:05Z

Is hiring a person that was caught lying in their resume a big risk?

Yes it is, you have hired a dishonest person, there is no way to interpret that positively. Whether it works out or not in this specific instance is immaterial.

Sometimes and in some places positions are very hard to fill properly because the human resources just are not available. So management might be advertising jobs with unrealistic expectations because the skill set just doesn't exist in terms of unemployed people looking for a job. I come across this problem quite a lot. And sometimes you are basically forced to take a risk.

I would prefer an honest person who could be trained up, than one who is lying. So I would watch them very carefully since it's a fait accompli. The risk your company took is huge, I hope it works out.

I have recently been in interviews where every single candidate was lying. The guy who was eventually hired is now in jail for fraud (unrelated to the job). Leaving a huge and expensive mess since he didn't do a lot of the work he was supposed to have for several months. However he was the only even borderline qualified person at the interviews so we took a chance, unfortunately it blew up in our faces.

This was a worst case scenario, other risks have worked out ok. And others were initially problematic but resolvable through training and/or eventual demotion. It's a gamble.

gazzz0x2z 5,93621634 · Answer 12 · 2016-02-16 08:48:17Z

At best, it's a risky move. Less risky, because it's easier to fire people in India, but still. Training him is gonna cost you a lot of money, and if you have to fire him later, it's definitively lost money.

It's also lost time, but as you had no good candidate, I'd say the time would have been lost anyways.

Now the question to ask yourself is : "how to find better-suited candidates?" Answer can be on several levels. First thing is to make the job more appealing(though it's completely firm-dependant, so I won't enter details here). Second thing it to go fishing in other waters. Have you tried your country's best universities? Or the professional salons of your domain of activity? Third thing is to try to target specific people, with tools like linkedin(if it's not common in India, try to find an equivalent).

Because the real problem is not that you took a risk with the less horrible candidate. The real problem is that you had only horrible candidates.

I am only a developer, doing some interviews - not working in HR. I am neather posting job adds, nor searching for new candidates. Why I accepted this guy was mostly because others were horible. Plus managers were a bit pushy. — Feb 16 '16 at 9:01
"Why I accepted this guy was mostly because others were horible." That's a really, really, really bad reason to hire someone. I can't emphasise this enough. Hiring the "least bad" candidate drags your entire team down. If you're not getting good candidates, you should stand up to your management and say "none of these are good enough; find me some better candidates". — Feb 16 '16 at 9:56
Too many hiring managers get stuck in the mindset of "this is the pool of candidates that applied, I must choose from them" rather than using the option of rejecting them all and continuing to advertise for applicants. I have almost been a victim of this, convincing my boss at the last minute that its better to struggle a little for a few more months rather than prop up an underperforming new hire. — Feb 16 '16 at 12:54

Lilienthalâ™¦ 53.9k36183218 · Answer 13 · 2016-02-16 12:19:34Z

Was hiring a person that was subsequently caught lying in their resume a bad move?

Of course it was, because you failed to catch the lie and you now have someone on your team that you would otherwise never have hired. It's also someone you cannot afford to keep as lying on your resume is such a strong indicator of bad judgement and unethical behaviour that it will poison all further interaction you have with this person, even if he does an okay job.

I'd only consider not firing an employee who's been caught outright lying on his resume if:

he's not client-facing,

he recognises the gravity of his lie and is abjectly apologetic,

he's otherwise shown to be reliable and trustworthy (good people sometimes make bad decisions, especially when in a long job search)

he's doing stellar work in his role, and

the lie won't affect future projects (using the technology/skill he lied about)

Note that omitting past jobs, degrees or whatever does not qualify as misrepresentation here. A resume is a marketing document and candidates are expected to leave off things that don't improve their profile. I'm talking purely about misrepresenting skills, work history or education. An honest mistake or typo such as listing a skill with an incorrect experience level can also be understandable because that error should have been caught by the interviewer if it was important.

Now, let's look at your specific situation, which isn't as black-and-white as you think. Since you were the hiring manager you are also at fault here. From what I can tell you realised in the interview that this person didn't have the required skill or experience in something that's a critical component of the role. Even if he listed it as part of his responsibilities over a 5-year period, a resume can't be exhaustive and his involvement with that skill could have been relatively minor or tangential but still worth pointing out. It was your job to dig into his experience here and figure out if he has what it takes to excel in the role. You either didn't do that and resorted to wishful thinking ("he should do fine with 5 years' experience!") or you caved to pressure from above to make a bad hire when you should have restarted the hiring process with an entirely new candidate pool.

While this is harsh and probably not what you wanted to hear, it's frankly bad management. You have a duty to your company and your team to hire the best person you can find when you're filling a position. There is no reason to settle for an unqualified candidate, especially given today's job market which has an abundant supply of qualified candidates for almost every job.¹

If you figured out this person was lying before hiring him but still offered him a job because you had to fill the position then that's a million times worse. The cost of a bad hire is incredibly high: aside from the salary, the cost of the opportunity cost of not having a qualified person in the role.

^{1 - If you aren't given a realistic budget to attract qualified candidates then that's an entirely different problem, but I won't go into that here.}

Re "listing a skill with an incorrect experience level", how can you objectively determine experience level, and convey that in perhaps one line of a resume? I've encountered (far too many) people who honestly thought they were expert in X, but fell short of what I'd consider adequate, and a few modest types who'd describe themselves as "fairly competent" when they were experts by my standards. — Feb 16 '16 at 19:26
@jamesqf "because that error should have been caught by the interviewer if it was important". In other words, it's the interviewer's job to determine the skill level for important qualifications. Many people won't list an experience "level" either. — Feb 16 '16 at 20:52
Sure, a good interviewer should have caught the different perception of skills, but it seems in this case, the interviewer didn't. So (by my reading of the question, at least) instead of accepting the blame for his faulty interviewing, he's trying to shift it to the person he hired. — Feb 17 '16 at 4:24
@jamesqf Well, yes, but I make it a point to answer what people should be doing instead of condoning bad management. :) — Feb 17 '16 at 10:33
Well, so am I. I just think the problem is not what the OP says it is, the job applicant did not lie, and the OP should accept responsibility for his poor interviewing skills instead of trying to pass the blame. — Feb 17 '16 at 22:26

user8365 · Answer 14 · 2016-02-16 13:35:33Z

You may have the scenario where it may be all right to hire someone who lied on an application. Apparently, in this particular culture/industry, everyone is doing it. There is no lying in Poker, only bluffing. It is looked at as trying to be competitive. The consensus may be this practice is understood by those doing the hiring, so they have a fudge factor. My advice would have been to try and find a few more applicants and see if any of them lie. Who knows, you may find one.

Everyone lies and few people admit it. If you dig deep enough, you'll find their definition is relative to acceptable practices of lying and in some cases they don't see leaving information out as lying. The job world is no different. The final offer can have a follow-up offer. If they "require" five years of experience, most advice is to apply even if you have four because everyone knows, if they think you're the best candidate, they'll make an exception.

You'd think a lawyer wrote or at least influenced many job posts. Does a candidate really have to meet all the requirements? Fine, lower the requirement the best candidate is deficient. There are a few industries that are regulated and require a change to be reposted for a certain amount of time before hiring. That's not the case in most places. I had a boss that started every meeting he ever held on time; he had a mechanical watch and was always able to turn back the time on it to suit his needs. What time is it=the same time on your boss's watch.

Kennah 1,783314 · Answer 15 · 2016-02-16 19:59:40Z