HIRING GUIDE
Most candidates exaggerate. Some fabricate. A structured verification process is the only way to know what's real before you make an offer.
Last updated: May 2026 · 6-step guide
A resume is a marketing document — not a sworn statement. Research consistently shows that 70–85% of candidates exaggerate at least one detail on their CV. Common misrepresentations include inflated job titles, overstated achievements, false dates to cover employment gaps, and unearned certifications.
A single bad hire can cost an organisation 1.5–3× the role's annual salary once you factor in onboarding, training, lost productivity, and the cost of a replacement search. Structured verification is the most cost-effective risk management tool a hiring team has.
Before the interview, list every specific, factual claim in the CV: job titles, employment dates, company names, degrees, certifications, and any quantified achievement (e.g. "grew ARR by 40%", "managed a team of 15"). These are your verification targets.
Contact previous employers by phone using contact numbers you source independently — not ones provided by the candidate. Confirm job title, exact dates, and reason for leaving. Many companies will only confirm employment (not performance), but title and date discrepancies are often enough.
Contact universities and professional bodies directly to confirm degrees and certifications. Most accrediting bodies offer online verification portals. For professional certifications (CPA, PMP, CISSP), check the certifying body's public register.
Claims like "launched a product used by 1M users" or "led a $2M budget" can't always be verified externally — but they can be interrogated. Use the STAR framework and ask for specifics: team structure, obstacles, what they personally owned vs. what the team did.
Check LinkedIn for consistency in dates, titles, and companies. For technical roles, review GitHub or portfolio work. Published articles, conference appearances, or product launches leave public records. Inconsistencies between the CV and public records are reliable red flags.
AI hiring tools can extract every claim from a CV, rate each one by verifiability and risk level, and generate specific probe questions for the interview. This turns a 30-page CV into a structured set of hypotheses to test — not just a document to skim.
Manual claim extraction is time-consuming. For a single CV, identifying every verifiable claim, assessing its risk level, and writing an interview question for each one can take 30–45 minutes per candidate.
AI hiring platforms like Nasiya automate this process: every claim is extracted, categorised (technical, leadership, impact, credentials), scored by verifiability and risk level, and matched to a targeted pressure-test question. The result is a candidate brief you can act on, not just a CV you've read.
How common is lying on a resume?
Studies suggest 70–85% of candidates exaggerate at least one claim. The most common are inflated titles, overstated team or budget sizes, and unverifiable impact claims.
Can I legally ask a previous employer to verify employment?
Yes, in most jurisdictions. Most employers will confirm dates of employment and job title. Performance information is typically withheld for legal reasons, but factual details like title and tenure are fair game.
What should I do if I discover a candidate lied?
If discovered before hiring, reject the candidate. If discovered post-hire, material misrepresentation on a job application is grounds for termination in most jurisdictions — consult HR or legal counsel.
How do I verify certifications online?
Most professional certifying bodies maintain online registers: ACCA, CIMA, PMP, AWS, Google, Salesforce, and others all have public verification portals. For academic degrees, contact the university's registrar directly.
Is AI resume screening reliable?
AI is highly reliable at extraction and structuring. It is not reliable at independent fact-checking. The best AI tools flag claims for human verification rather than claiming to verify them — and generate the right questions to probe each one in the interview.
Nasiya extracts every claim from a CV, scores it for risk and verifiability, and hands your team a targeted interview brief in seconds.
Try Nasiya free →