When the Resume Outshines Reality

The following article was first published on Shipman & Goodwin‘s Employment Law Letter. It is reposted here with permission.

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Employers across the country are increasingly confronting a frustrating trend: a stark disconnect between what candidates promise on paper and what they deliver at work.

In a competitive labor market, more job applicants appear to be inflating their skills, padding their years of experience, and claiming proficiencies they do not actually possess.

The pattern goes like this: a candidate’s resume and application materials describe an ideal hire, the candidate interviews well, and an offer follows largely on the strength of those represented qualifications.

Within weeks of the start date, however, supervisors discover that the new employee cannot perform core functions of the role at the level represented, triggering a familiar cycle of corrective action, performance management, and, too often, an early and costly separation.

Know What’s Driving the Trend

Several forces are likely driving this trend.

The widespread use of online job boards and one-click applications has made it easy to apply for many positions quickly, and candidates feel pressure to tailor, and sometimes embellish, their materials to clear automated keyword screens before a human ever reads them.

The growth of remote and hybrid work has reduced the informal, in-person cues.

The growth of remote and hybrid work has reduced the informal, in-person cues that once helped employers gauge a candidate’s true capabilities.

In addition, generative AI tools now make it effortless to produce polished, keyword-optimized resumes and even to draft persuasive answers to written application.

At the same time, tight hiring timelines and lean HR departments can lead to shortcuts in reference checking, probing interview questions, and skills verification.

Start with Better Application Questions

The good news is that thoughtful drafting of application questions can highlight inconsistencies before an offer is extended.

Rather than inviting applicants to self-rate vague competencies (“Are you proficient in Excel?”), employers should ask for specific, verifiable detail: which functions the applicant has actually performed, in what context, for how long, and with what measurable results.

Employers should also confirm that application forms include a clear, signed attestation that all information is truthful and complete.

Open-ended prompts that require the candidate to describe a concrete project, the tools used, and their individual contribution are much more difficult to embellish.

Employers should also confirm that application forms include a clear, signed attestation that all information is truthful and complete, and that any material misrepresentation or omission is grounds for rejection or termination.

This language prompts applicants to review their responses more closely and preserves the employer’s options if a misstatement later comes to light.

Interview to Test the Resume, Not Just Confirm It

Interview questions should be framed to test the depth behind the resume rather than simply confirm it.

Behavioral and situational questions, such as asking the candidate to walk through how they handled a real situation, are more revealing than hypotheticals.

Skilled interviewers probe with follow-up questions.

Skilled interviewers probe with follow-up questions that drill into the “how” and “why,” because candidates who genuinely did the work can explain their reasoning, the obstacles they faced, and the trade-offs they weighed, while those who overstated their role tend to stay at the surface.

Where the position demands a specific competency, a practical exercise, work sample, or skills assessment administered during the hiring process provides objective evidence that no resume can manufacture.

To avoid unintended legal exposure, however, any such exercise should be job-related and consistent with business necessity, validated where appropriate, and administered uniformly to all candidates—both to measure the skills the role actually requires and to ensure no disparate impact on a protected group.

Verify Credentials, and Document the Process

Finally, always document the qualifications represented during the application and interview process, confirm credentials and prior employment, and speak with the candidate’s references.

This will ensure a clear record if a performance problem later emerges, which makes separation easier to defend.

Always document the qualifications represented during the application and interview process.

If you use a third-party vendor for background checks, remember that the Fair Credit Reporting Act imposes its own notice, authorization, and pre-adverse-action requirements—and missteps can create liability even when the decision not to hire was otherwise sound.

In a market where the resume increasingly outshines the reality, the employers who invest in better questions and better verification on the front end will spend far less time managing the consequences on the back end.

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About the author: Sarah Westby is a partner in Shipman & Goodwin LLP’s Employment and Labor Practice Group and chair of the firm’s Cannabis Team.