Some of the most creative writers in the world can be found on job board posting sites. According to a recent study conducted by CareerBuilder in which 2,188 hiring managers and human resource professionals were surveyed, eight-eight percent indicated they had received resumes that contained substantial lies through job board posting sites. According to their responses, the study found the following:

  • 20 percent state fraudulent degrees
  • 27 percent give falsified references
  • 40 percent have inflated salary claims

What this means for nearly every company is that they are going to be inundated with deliberately misleading resumes submitted through the job boards that will result in them hiring someone who was not as “advertised”.  Unfortunately, every year Thai companies suffer the consequences through higher payroll costs, poor performance and lost time.  So what’s the answer?

Well, companies can implement extensive screening measures yet these efforts usually led to acrimonious relationships before the person has accepted employment.  Even worse is when a candidate withdraws from consideration or terminates the relationship because they feel the company does not trust them.  The truth is that companies that have to invest in background checks do so because they don’t have the right people asking the right questions throughout the interview process.   A skilled interviewer can gain an understanding of a candidate without it feeling like an “interrogation” as its done through conversation and only after the candidate has shown that they are comfortable with the interviewer.

In discussing the negative impact job boards have on a company’s recruiting efforts, it’s important to determine why companies use them. First, companies can get alot of resumes in a very short period of time.  In many cases, companies have literally received thousands of resumes for a single job and all those resumes need to reviewed by someone to determine the relevancy of each and every candidate.  In being overwhelmed with so many resumes, some companies rely on software as a way of screening the candidates, however this means a company is leaving an important hiring decision in the hands of a software program.  As a group of experienced executive search consultants, the team at Bangkok Executive can tell you with first-hand experience that software can’t tell you who is lying or telling the truth, it can only tell whose resumes were able to fool the system.  In looking at a job description, a dishonest person is going to write a resume based on what the job description describes as an ideal candidate.  Therefore, software systems are an incredible waste of money because they do nothing to improve the reliability of the resumes the company receives.

The second reason a company uses a job board site is because they think its going to save them money.  The trouble with that belief is that they are going to get massive amounts of low quality candidates submitting resumes to their openings everyday which will lead a search process that goes on for months and months.  In comparison, a search firm can identity the ten best people in the industry and call them within 24 hours and move the process forward very quickly.  The companies that use search firms know time is money and quantity does mean quality and that’s why they lead in their respective industries.  What companies need to realize is that a cheap job board posting will not save them money, in fact it costs them substantially more through poor performance and poor results.

Ultimately, every company needs to place an emphasis on return on investment rather than the cheapest option. Consider this, you can have eye surgery performed by someone who went to a very poor quality medical school with a history of failed surgeries for very cheap or you can elect to pay twice as much to have it done in a top hospital by a highly respected eye surgeon who can change your life.  Who would you choose?