Recruitment Integrity: Why Your Process Matters More Than You Think
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The hidden risks of trusting self-reported candidate data.
A client recently asked about candidates using AI to help them complete their psychometric tests. Fortunately, there are many safeguards in place by reputable test providers, such as the one we use, Criteria Corp, and also even within AI. I asked ChatGPT to complete a test and it refused and couldn’t access the test platform.
While it is theoretically possible that other AI applications may attempt to bypass such protections, this raises a deeper question: What would a candidate even ask AI to optimise? Perfect scores? A particular personality profile? Most candidates have no real insight into the psychometric profile required for success in a specific role. In fact, an unusually “perfect” set of results is itself a red flag and should prompt further investigation.
Even if for some reason a candidate manages to cheat or misrepresent themselves, what good is it to that candidate if they win a job they aren’t suited for. Who really wins? No one.
However, I have never had anyone ask how reliable someone’s CV, written application and interview responses are. All of these sources of data are open to writer’s license and selective reporting. It is doubtful any candidate will put anything they believe could reflect poorly on them in their CV, written application or how they answer their interview questions.
Case in point; “Man Faces Courts for Faking his CV”. This person applied for a job paying $400,000 per year at Myer, for which he was nowhere near qualified, but he got the job. Or, “Former SA public servant jailed for lying on CV to get job”, or Victorian school principal Neil Lennie also lied about his qualifications, It happens.
Candidates putting their best foot forward is to expected; that’s part of the game, so to speak. However, it is the role of the hiring manager to try and see through this and have a selection process that allows that to happen.
Good recruitment practice never relies on a single data source. Instead, it looks for a convergence of data across:
- Telephone screening
- Psychometric testing
- Structured interviews
- Work history
- Observable behaviour
- Referee checks
Final Thought
As technology evolves, recruitment risk does not disappear — it simply changes shape. The greatest safeguard is not any single tool, but a well-designed, evidence-based selection process that demands data consistency and verification. When the data aligns, confidence increases. When it doesn’t, risk increases.
About the Author:
Christopher Apps is an Organisational Psychologist and the owner of Fermion. He stays updated on the latest psychology research and shares evidence-based insights. The focus of Fermion is "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and “Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them”. If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please contact us at Fermion.
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
Eleanor Roosevelt.
