I thought my post, How Do You Dodge the Bogus Job Reference Bullet? , might have been an end to this particular anecdote, but as they say in the classics, 'and there's more!' Our consultant identified another 'rare as hen's teeth' payroll specialist for the contract role, who seemingly had a wealth of recent, highly relevant work history using a specific payroll system called ADP.

Upon investigation on our database, he discovered it was highly likely that this person's CV had been altered to stand out for this particular role. Wouldn't you do that anyway, tailor your CV for a specific role to highlight your relevant areas of experience? The issue was that our database had multiple CVs from this same candidate with vastly different work histories. This prompted an even more thorough search of our database, LinkedIn and generally asking around.

It was discovered that the candidate was known to one of our recruitment consultants, who had previously worked with another recruitment agency prior to joining people2people. It transpired that this candidate had a history of fake timesheets, poor attendance and at least three dead mothers (and once again, I am not making this up). Our consultant immediately warned the hiring manager/new client that this candidate was back in the job market and applying for this role. As two other agencies had also been briefed on this contract, our consultant was advised that this candidate had been introduced by one of the other agencies and the hiring manager had made the decision to interview her, irrespective of the anomalies on numerous copies of her CV.

The reason was that her CV 'looked good' (probably after receiving the same ADP tailored version our consultant had) and she was going to give her a go on a temp basis. Our consultant advised the hiring manager that he (and people2people) could never knowingly represent anyone in the market who he knew to be misrepresenting themselves with a history of trouble making. We would rather not place the job than place it with such a candidate.