Recruitment scoring website www.HireScores.com is reporting a dramatic increase in enquiries from candidates seeking advice about the legalities of lying on their CVs. Over the last month, it has received more than 500 such enquiries. It believes that BBC1’s The Apprentice, in which some contestants were found to have lied on their application, is behind the recent influx of worried workers and candidates trying to establish what the outcome could be if their lies were uncovered.

Lisette Howlett, founder of HireScores.com, said, “It is no surprise that the current economic downturn has made people desperate to stand out from the crowd by telling what they consider to be white lies, but applicants who do so must prepare themselves for what will happen when they are expected to manage something that is completely new to them, or talk about experiences they have never had.”

She continues, “Candidates who lie on their CVs and subsequently earn themselves a new role are gaining monetary advantage illegally, which is considered to be fraudulent deception. This is not only gross misconduct (thus liable to dismissal without notice), but, in more serious cases, the candidate can be sued for the total cost of hiring them, or sent to prison.”