How do you verify a job candidates resume?

If the candidate makes it to the interview stage, the resume does not really matter. If they show 10 years of Exchange experience, but can't troubleshoot a simple routing problem in the interview then they either lied on their resume or they are just a bad candidate. Either way, what is on the resume is only useful until the interview.

• Calling references which are completely false (I have heard of staged reference requests)... no actual experience with the reference, just a friend
• Validating work experience

Look up the phone number for the organization rather than use the phone number supplied, and ask for the relevant department or HR where you tell them you are verifying employment history. In the US, HR will confirm dates employed, title of position(s) held, possibly reason for separation, and little else. People in the department may yield more. Named references (i.e. friends, coworkers) you'll have to take at face value, though with your questions you can probe whether you're getting puffery or a reasonably straight opinion.

• Candidates can put whatever they want on the resume regarding experience/certification

For colleges, high schools, and similar, you should be able to get a confirmation of certificate earned and date, though not much else. If, however, the person has a FERPA (that's the acronym of the enabling federal law) privacy block on their student records, the college can't even say that the person is or was ever a student. In that case, get back to the candidate and tell them that the college couldn't confirm their enrollment, ask them if they had a FERPA block, and if so, could they contact the college to remove it.

I have found that the biggest problem is lies about a person's skills. Lies about where they worked and what they did are generally less relevant. A person can have references that check out no matter how careful you are, but they are still incompetent. They simply went from job to job being totally incompetent.

Trusting people will bring you problems. Never trust a candidate. Don't let someone deceive you because they get you involved in an interesting conversation - this could all be staged to prevent you from asking questions. Wasting time with candidates who are essentially trying to defraud you is also a problem. Be ready to end the interview early.

This is especially problematic with sysadmins. I believe that about half of candidates submitted by the best headhunters or filtered by careful HR departments are completely lying about the skills on their resume (90+% if unfiltered). They are usually telling the truth about where they worked - they just were allowed to be incompetent at the previous job. Since I've seen incompetent employees allowed to last for years at a job, this isn't a surprise.

What I do is:

Bring the resume to the meeting. Ask them the simplest possible question about every skill they mention. If it's DNS, ask what an A record is. If it's C, make them write Hello World. If they mention "Linux", ask for an example of a disk device name or name a very well-known configuration file and ask what it's for (e.g. /etc/fstab). If they can't answer a trivial question immediately and confidently, they are a liar. The interview is over, hiring a liar is always problematic. They will lie throughout the job. It's like going on a first date with someone who instantly reveals themselves to be a pathological liar. Make sure they knew it was on their resume (that a recruiter didn't add it).

If the stress of being asked a trivial question about one of their skills is something they can't handle, they're not going to be able to handle the stress of a small project, let alone a production emergency. Sometimes the undue stress is from people with poor social skills, I don't judge people for simply showing signs of stress. But if they suddenly can't function, it doesn't matter what the cause is, they won't be able to do the job. They're lying about the skill, even if they can do it in some situations they can not do it in a real-world situation. If their language skills are too poor to communicate an answer, the interview is over. They're lying about the skill. "DNS" is an abbreviation for "able to configure and maintain DNS in response to requirements", being unable to communicate with others about the requirements means you do not possess the skill. If someone is poor at communicating, I try to determine how much of a problem this is, therefore how much of an impact this would be on their ability to do the job.

Explain to HR that you will end the interview early if they are lying about skills on their resume. You don't have a responsibility to make a person who is lying and trying to defraud your company not feel embarrassed that they were caught. Your environment will dictate how to handle this. The safest way is to say that you're going to send in the next interviewer. Shake their hand, tell HR that the person was caught with material lies on their resume, and to have them escorted out of the building. This reduces the risk of a violent confrontation. Remember these people are already trying to scam you - they indeed might escalate the situation.

If they get through this, you ask the next level of question about -each- skill. (you can do it in two passes to save time if you're suspicious, one pass if they seem legitimate). Some hands-on (give them a keyboard) testing is required for the second pass. If it says DNS on their resume, ask them how reverse DNS is handled, or what a PTR record is for. If it says C on their resume, give them a keyboard and have them write a program with flow control that actually compiles. If it says Linux, give them a directory full of files and ask them to rename some and delete others. Depending on the context and the severity of the problem, you may want to continue if someone fails on the second pass - e.g. if the skill is not needed for the job. "I used to know it and forgot" should not be acceptable at this stage. You're still asking questions so simple that a person who claims to have forgotten it and listed it as a skill is lying.

The next step to making sure their resume is honest is discussing their previous job experience. If they can't talk confidently about things they claim to have done and put on their resume, they are lying. Sometimes it's extremely poor language skills - too bad, the job requires communication and an inability to communicate is a legitimate reason to not hire someone.

After you've gotten through this point, the real interview can begin.

Checking resume items can be time consuming but might be worth doing if it's a serious candidate. After all, if they're willing falsify items on their resume it calls into question their ethics. Do you want to hand system admin privileges to someone like that?

The interview is the most critical element and shouldn't be short changed because that gives you an opportunity to size the person up and see if they are the type of people you want on your team.

Things you can check with the resume: 1. Certifications - most vendors that offer certifications also offer a way to check the status. As an example Microsoft has a way for their MCP's to share their transcript with a potential employer.

2. Degree/GPA - the only way to validate this is with a transcript from their college.

3. Work experience - if they don't provide a reference for previous work experience, there's no way to validate this except by asking them detailed questions.

4. References - again, ask detailed questions, press them for specifics. Can you describe a typical day? How do they handle themselves in a high stress situation? Can you describe a specific situation where the candidate handled themself exceptionally well? Can you describe a situation where the candidate was lacking and how did they address it afterward? You could also ask the reference about what they do and judge if they know what they're talking about.

There's no real way to determine with any finality if someone setup a staged reference, you just have to do your due diligence and then use your interview process to bring in the best people.

Validating education details (degree, GPA)

Have candidates provide an official transcript from their college or university. That will contain the details of their degree and their GPA, and it will probably have anti-forgery features as well (official stationary, embossing, etc.).

In general, it was my understanding that employers could fire employees for falsifying information on their job application. That seems to be the best safeguard for deterring candidates from falsifying information on their resume, and for dealing with employees who were hired based on falsified information on their resume.

Well, for validating education details, I guess he has some sort of a diploma, some sort of paper. You can always ask for that. Colleges usually have a list of their former students (at least in this part of Europe).

• References: Generally I think talking to the reference and getting into some detail about a project that's on the resume or came up while talking to the candidate might help. You sort of have to go with your instinct while talking to them.

• Made up experience: This should show up during the technical interview. If they demonstrate the skills you want during the interview and feel like other experienced candidates, they probably didn't make it up. If you're interested in some skill or experience on their resume, probe it.

• Educational details: At the in-person interview stage, does this matter? If it matters, call the school registrar.

I've got a few things listed on my CV (resume) - all of which are accurate. I've never been called on any of them though, because none of them prove if I can do the job or not. If someone claims to have a PhD, ask them for a copy of the dissertation - if it's in a relevant field.

I agree that the interview is key. Asking behavior related questions and specific scenario questions is the best bet.

I have called references with some success as well, but I do understand that caution should be used.

Another trick is that after speaking with the "reference" you can ask the person providing the reference to provide you with two other people who worked with the applicant at this job. It takes a little more time but IF the reference provides you with other people that you can speak with you can pretty easily get better information as you move on down the line of the references' references.