When Peg Newman of Salt Lake City's Qualified Personnel received a phone call to confirm her company had sent a new hire over, Newman said she'd never even heard of the woman.
What's more, the accounting firm that hired the woman discovered she hadn't even graduated from high school, despite her claims to the contrary.
Newman, who owns the employment service, discovered the woman didn't have a clue, either.
"They asked her if she could provide proof that she'd graduated and she asked, 'What would you need for proof?' " Newman said. "Uh, a diploma, maybe?"
Newman's experience isn't rare among Utah employers. Job applicants' resumes end up a little fudged on any number of factors, from hopefuls outright claiming they have gone to schools they haven't to providing details they end up "forgetting" in interviews.
"It used to be you just trusted everybody on their word and didn't verify anything and mostly had a good chance of being right. But as growth started to hit Utah, you were kind of taking fate into your own hands," Newman said. "We're unfortunately becoming more cynical. There's a lot of great employees out there — it's just a matter of making the right matches."
Many times an applicant will say he has a high school diploma when trying to make the jump from an industrial to a clerical job. Somewhere along the line, job applicants are told employers won't check their references, and sometimes they're right. It's a bit of a crapshoot apparently, as only some companies will check into applicants' backgrounds.
"We ran into a lot of people faxing their resume over, and once we would see what they've done, we'd immediately say, 'Man! This is the guy (for the job)!' " said executive recruiter Darnell DeBrule of the Rads Group in Sandy. "Then we call and ask them for details, and they can't provide them."
While some check and recheck resumes , others put no stock into them at all.
"Personally, I believe all resumes lie," said Dirk Kotterell of Management Recruiters of Salt Lake, who says he knows of only two instances where education was falsified in his 10 years of placing individuals in jobs.
"They either overstate or understate. It's one of the worst ways to screen candidates."
Kotterell added he would hire somebody based on personality and willingness to adapt to a new work situation, even in the absence of any real marketable skills.
One reason resumes may end up with misleading information, according to DeBrule, is many people don't know how to write one. And although a resume might get somebody in the door, multiple interviews are usually more telling.
"You may be able to pull wool over my my eyes, but not over the eyes of the 13-year veteran after me," said Lori Powells, who does the initial screening at computer software company Cayenta in Salt Lake City.
Applicants whose credentials don't live up to their claims are usually let down easy.
"(If we find out they are lying) we don't hang up in their face. We just say, well, it doesn't look like you're qualified," DeBrule said.
E-mail: dmoody@desnews.com