96% of Gen Z Applicants Admit to Doing This in Job Interviews—and Most Don’t Regret It

A majority of candidates now admit to bending the truth to land a role—raising the stakes for employers struggling to separate real qualifications from AI‑polished fiction.

BY BRUCE CRUMLEY @BRUCEC_INC

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images

When business owners decide to fill staff openings, they look for qualified candidates whose background, skills, and personality seem to fit the company’s needs. But accurately evaluating that ideal match is now getting a lot harder. According to recent survey data, 93 percent of respondents admitted to lying about their professional experience, and intentionally misleading recruiting employers in other ways that increased their chances of being hired.

Routine recourse to manipulation, exaggeration, or misrepresentation by job seekers about their previous work history—or even themselves—was the main finding in the Trust Hiring Report by background screening company GCheck. Released March 24, its survey of 1,500 recent job seekers found 93 percent admitted to “embellishing or lying during the hiring process to appear more qualified.” Just as bad as that willingness to dupe recruiters with head-fakes or fabrications, 60 percent of participants said they doubted they’d have landed work if they’d been straight with employers.

That disingenuousness (when not dishonesty) among job candidates may reflect a growing willingness across society—especially by political leaders—to mislead or lie when the advantages of doing so outweigh the risks of being caught. Indeed, one survey detail suggests increased exposure to falsehoods in public life may increase candidates’ readiness to replicate them.

For example, fully 96 percent of Gen Z respondents said they’d lied during a hiring process, compared to 50 percent of Baby Boomers, who started and pursued careers in eras when rectitude was considered a must in business and government. Similarly, 41 percent of that younger cohort said they’d described having been fired from a previous job as a voluntary departure to recruiters, compared to 17 percent of Boomers who’d done so.

How Anthropic's Claude AI Became a Co-Founder

But there’s more fueling the trend than collectively weakening ethics.

It’s also a direct consequence of increasingly tight and competitive labor markets—and applicants’ doubts that recruiters have the time, means, or diligence to check their experience and skills claims. That’s resulting in a spreading practice of what GCheck founder and CEO Houman Akhavan called “’careerfishing,’ where candidates misrepresent their professional identity to secure employment” with a high degree of confidence they won’t be caught.

“Today’s hiring environment is creating pressure on both sides,” Akhavan said in comments about the survey’s findings. “Candidates feel pushed to present the most competitive version of themselves while employers are overwhelmed with a surge in applications and difficulty deciphering what’s real As confidence in traditional background checks has eroded, it has created space for what we’re calling ‘careerfishing’.”

© Inc.com