Employment Law - Why Employers Must Verify CVs - By: Tim Bishop

Many employers use the standard methods of recruitment i.e. a CV and covering letter or an application form. Although these are a suitable way of shortlisting candidates, many employers then fail to interview or seek references. The dangers of relying upon these written methods only are that people fabricate their abilities and you may end up with an unsuitable employee.

It is an unfortunate fact that many people exaggerate and sometimes lie on their CV or application form to be considered for a job. These exaggerations or lies can normally be sussed out via a rigorous interview or assessment process. However, for those employer's who do not have the time or capacity to put candidates through such an evaluation they may find that the person appointed does not have the skills they professed to hold. A frequent example is where a CV declares a person's IT skills as being 'excellent' or they are a 'proficient user of...'...' numerous Microsoft packages when in fact the candidate has barely used a PC. This unfortunately does not become apparent until the newly appointed employee is unable to complete the tasks in hand due to their incapability with IT.

What can I do to protect myself?

The following steps can be taken in order to make your recruitment process more robust without breaching the employment rights of any worker:

- Try to develop a role specific application form instead of accepting CVs. Application forms help encourage fair recruitment processes as monitoring information from the candidate (such as their age, race, religious beliefs) can be removed prior to shortlisting whereas this information may be volunteered on a CV.

- Ensure that your application form asks detailed questions rather than generic ones about skills you know the candidate will require.

- Ask candidates to sign a declaration form at the bottom of an application form to confirm that what they have written is truthful.

- Interview every shortlisted candidate using pre-prepared questions that focus on the work they will have to do. Scenario questions are a useful tool to assess how a person would re-act in similar circumstances to that which they may face at work.

- Use assessments such as verbal reasoning, numeracy tests and IT tasks to see how capable the candidate is in these areas. The IT task that you set should mirror the type of IT work that the employee will be doing when in post.

- It is good practice to obtain references prior to employing the candidate. If gaining written references is proving a problem then ask the candidate for permission to phone the referee for a quick chat. Although offers are made subject to satisfactory references it can save a lot of time and disruption, along with the costs of recruiting again, if an unsatisfactory reference is received prior to employment.

I have employed an unsuitable candidate - what can I do?

If you have been unfortunate enough to recruit a candidate who is entirely unsuitable for the post you can consider the following options:

Option 1: Try to find a suitable post for the candidate. This may involve redeploying to a different department.

Option 2: Can the issues be solved using training? Have you considered that the employer might merely be a slow starter?

Option 3: If it is still early days, then you can withdraw the offer of employment. By doing this, your employee might have a breach of contract case against you. An Employment Tribunal could award damages for breach of the employment rights - equal to the sum of salary earned during the contractual notice period and potential exemplary damages if the employee left another job to work for you. You can avoid the former by offering the employee a PILON (payment in lieu of notice).

Option 4: Dismiss the employee on breach of trust. This can be done if the employee has lied on their CV or receives an unsatisfactory reference and therefore is unsuitable for the post. Dishonesty amounts to a breach of trust, which is a dismissal offence and should not amount to any breach of their employment rights. In some severe circumstances the employer is also able to claim back salary and expenses paid to the employee during the period of employment.

Option 5: Dismiss the employee on capability grounds. Note that in order to do this correct dismissal procedures would have to be followed. Nevertheless, as the employee will not have been employed for a year (as is the statutory requirement) they will not be able to claim unfair dismissal. This is not the case if they have been dismissed on an automatic 'unfair' ground such as race, pregnancy, age, disability etc. If this occurred then they would have a claim of unfair dismissal.

As you can see from the above it is much safer, and in the long term cheaper, to have a robust recruitment process in place than appoint the wrong person. If you have recruited an unsuitable candidate and have doubts as how to remove that person from your employment it is sensible to seek legal advice from a specialist employment solicitors before taking any dismissal action.

About the Author

Bonallack & Bishop are specialist Employment Solicitors with extensive experience of advising both employers and employees on their employment rights. Tim Bishop is senior partner at the firm, responsible for all major strategic decisions. He has grown the firm by 1000% in 13 years and has plans for continued expansion.

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