Pre-employment screeners Powerchex have published their latest annual survey of CV discrepancies in the financial sector (they don't say how these compare with other, less 'creative' sectors ...). To summarise their findings:
- 19% of candidates' CVs include discrepancies - the highest level in three years
- Nearly all kinds of financial sector companies saw an increase in discrepancies. The largest increase was in the IT sector
- Brokers have a disproportionately large number of applicants with hidden criminal records
- There has been a six-fold spike in the proportion of candidates with undisclosed bankruptcies since last year
- Women were more likely than men to have a discepancy on their CV
- There has been a sharp increase in the number of under 21 year olds with discrepancies on their CVs
- Candidates educated in the state sector are 25% more likely to lie on their CV than the privately educated
- University graduates are more honest than non-graduates
- The better the university a candidate has attended, the less likely they are to lie on their CV
Taken separately, few of these findings would give much cause for thought. But read through in a single sitting, they do seem to point to the fact that it is those already at a disadvantage in the workplace - women and the poorly educated - who feel they have to lie to get on. Particularly in the tradition-bound, misogynistic world of the City.
