Extravagant claims by job seekers

The tale of Stephen Wilce is one that some Tauranga employment agencies are all too familiar with.
Mr Wilce, chief defence force scientist for the past five years, quit last week following an journalist's story revealing his extravagant claims about his working history - including a falsified distinguished combat career and placement on the English bob-sled team.
Such recruitment exaggerations were not really heard of in Tauranga but 1st Call Recruitment regularly encountered a few "discrepancies" in the CVs of people they deal with, managing director Phill van Syp said.
The organisation is a service agency for employers and potential employees.
"I can think of a couple of incidents where the CV has not matched reality," Mr van Syp said.
One of the most extreme cases involved a man who went so far as to apply for work under a different name to hide parts of his work history.
But the omission of key work history was one of the most common fudges of local CVs, he said.
"There will be embellishments of how long they have worked at certain places for, while missing other time periods where they worked at other places."
Mr van Syp said the need for employers to check references was "right up there".
New Zealand law meant a lot of information could not be gained by an employer without a person's consent. However, employers were allowed to ask another workplace for details on an applicant's employment, the position they held, how long they worked there for and how many sick days they took.
Mr van Syp said a flipside to revealing all on a CV was that it could make it hard for someone with a chequered history to be given a fair go.
CV Success managing director Anita Perry said not following up on fudged work history was a trap employers regularly fell into.
"That's why verbal history checks with former employers are so important," Ms Perry said. "Verbal reference checks are a very, very easy way to find out if someone is being truthful or not."
Another pitfall was believing an applicant's fake account of qualifications. Ms Perry suggested that if things got to an interview stage, the potential employer should ask for original certificates.
WHO ARE YOU HIRING?
Ask for original certificates at the interview.
If suspicious of a workplace or education facility's existence, Google it.
Always make verbal reference checks.
Take special note of missing time periods in work history.
Ask a former employer how many sick days the applicant had.