I have to ‘put my hands up’ confess that during the early stages of my career I have turned ‘filing’ in to ‘document management’, ‘photocopying and pagination’ into ‘production and management of case files’, and ‘booking meetings when I’m told to’ into ‘executive support and diary management’. Very few people can say that they have not tailored their CV to add a bit more glamour to previous roles and focus on the talents most appealing to a potential employer. For the most part, these are harmless embellishments that do not affect the genuine ability or suitability of a candidate, they merely make them stand out from the crowd.

When Andrea Leadsom’s campaign team decided to publish her CV this summer, they believed that they were going to help evidence her career in the City, but in fact the effect was catastrophic and called in to question her specific roles in a number of organisations. When embellishment turns to simple untruth, and with degree fraud more prevalent than most people realise, where does that leave you as an employer?

Even during my relatively short career so far, I can recall watching a colleague as she was asked to leave her desk immediately by HR and security, and then as she was escorted from the building. She had claimed to have a law degree but had in fact not completed any such qualification and thankfully for the employer, all job offers were subject to verification of qualifications. Whilst this isn’t going to be an issue affecting every vacancy, in every recruitment round, as an employer you need to ensure that you always have your defences up, so that you don’t find yourself facing a tribunal claim from someone you dismissed because of their own lies.

Until such time as an offer is accepted by a candidate, you are free to withdraw your offer to them should a lie come to light however, once acceptance has taken place, your new employee will have some employment rights. Whilst they cannot claim unfair dismissal until they have been with you for two years, they could allege that their dismissal was a result of an automatically unfair reason or, a more likely outcome, they may claim that the reason for dismissal was discrimination. For this reason, if you find yourself in such a situation, you must be extra careful to ensure that a fair process is followed in relation to the dismissal and, that the detailed reasons for dismissal are recorded and communicated to the employee at each stage.

Here are my top three tips for employers to ensure that fraudsters don’t slip through the net:

• Never underestimate the importance of background checks! Agencies (if you are using one) will often do this for you but make sure you understand their procedure.
• All offers and contracts should be ‘Subject to verification of application information/qualifications'.
• Employment contracts and your staff handbook should be clear that provision of false information within a CV or application can constitute ‘gross misconduct’ potentially leading to dismissal.