Discrepancies exist in the level of perceived honesty during recruitment in Canada, according to The Recruitment Risk Index, a Canada-based study commissioned by Xref.

The study found an overwhelming majority of Canadians, 93%, claim to make no exaggerations to their qualifications or work experience; however, 82% of HR professionals surveyed believe people providing references are not always being honest.

And while 97% of Canadians disagree that they have asked referrals to exaggerate on their behalf, 68% of HR professionals surveyed claim to be fairly confident they were being lied to when checking references by phone.

“It may be that Canadians just don’t realize some of the mistakes being made when applying for new jobs — and when submitting references as part of the process — but what this study has discovered is a bit of a black hole of truth,” said Xref CEO and founder Lee-Martin Seymour. “Whether that’s intentional or not, organizations must be able to safeguard their systems and not fall victim to dishonest candidates.”

The study was based two separate online surveys. One was conducted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 12 among 1,011 randomly selected Canadian adults who have applied for a job with a new employer in Canada within the past two years and had to provide an employment reference. The other was conducted Oct. 24 to Oct. 30 among 102 randomly selected Canadian adults who are employed in human resources and involved in the reference-checking process for their organizations. All participants are Angus Reid Forum panelists.

The report also said 60% of HR professionals surveyed admitted to “stalking” their prospective job candidates online to find out more about them. However, Facebook surpassed LinkedIn and even Google as the go-to destination for “stalking” at 79% for Facebook versus 66% for both LinkedIn and Google, according to Xref. However, 35% of Canadian jobseekers aged 18 to 24 admit to setting their social accounts to private while job-seeking and 28% also admit to editing their social media profiles and hiding certain posts.

Older applicants, 30- to 49-year-olds, are almost twice as likely as their young job seekers to have exaggerated their qualifications and work experience to get a job —12.5% compared to 7%, the report said. They are also three times more likely to admit to asking a referral to pretend to be someone they are not, 9% versus 3%.

The index found the reference-checking process causes anxiety for a significant portion of the country's job-seeking population. Sixty-two percent of Canadians aged 18 to 39 admit to feeling the delays the validation process could cause in their quest to land a role. Half of all women and 44% of the general population also agree that delays in the reference checking process have caused them anxiety.