I was deeply shocked by a recent survey that suggested 30 per cent of job applicants embellished the truth or lied on a curriculum vitae. Can the figure really be that low? (1) I had always assumed CVs were filled with evasions, half-truths and' downright untruths. But the news that merely 70 per cent of workers are honest has shaken my lack of faith in my fellow humans. The only consolation is that people often fib in anonymous sur-veys, just as they do on resumes, which means the real proportion may be higher. One prediction rang true from the research by the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. (2) It was that the incentive for falsehood is growing, as unemployment balloons and competition for jobs rises. In coming months recruiters will therefore be bombarded with CVs making extremely misleading claims. It was the same during the downturn of the early 1990s. Then, one acquaintance obtained a graduate traineeship at a large bank by bumping his third-class degree up to a 2: 1. a journalist colleague meanwhile admitted to me that his degree from a top university was entirely fictional. (3) Another contemporary explained away a year lost to bone idleness by telling prospective employers that he had been writing a field guide to the wild flowers of the Pyrenees (比利牛斯山脉).I might have lied on my own CV, if an east coast Scottish upbringing had not lumbered me with the subliminal conviction that I would burn for eternity in hell if I did. (4) A company whose services include background checks on job applicants, says that inaccuracies on CVs divide into three main groups. First, there are honest mistakes, typically made when candidates muddle dates. Second, there is deliberate fibbing about qualifications. Mr Thomas says: 'A lie told 20 years ago to get a job can become part of the liar's reality. So he tells it again when he switches jobs, even though he has become a successful finance director. ' Third, applicants close up suspicious gaps in their employment history. In one case investigated by Kroll, a candidate turned out to have spent a three-month gap in prison for fraud. About 65 per cent of businesses take up references for shortlisted job applicants, according to research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Fewer than half said they found out anything useful. (5) This is hardly surprising now that the fear of litigation prevents past employers from saying anything more revealing than; 'Yes. Derek worked for us. He has a beard and knows a bit about databases. ' Less than 40 per cent of businesses bother to check academic and professional qualifications. (61)