Why the untruthful IT contractors are getting caught out, and how trust is increasingly a pre-requisite

“I don’t trust that a candidate can do something unless they can do it in front of me.”

It’s not a very trusting opening line of a post which came into my Linked-In feed.

But it does speak to something I understand. And that’s this -- that a healthy dose of scepticism is required in response to the claims of IT contractors coming forward for work, particularly in a shrinking market, because IT contractors are only human, writes Matt Collingwood of tech recruitment firm VIQU.

Testing, not just asking

The agent behind the post apparently asked a candidate: “How good are you in MS Excel?” to which the reply (apparently) was:

“I’m really confident and use it every day in my current job.”

The agent’s post continued: “But ask them [as I did] to link two spreadsheets together – [as I did] - or start using formulas - [as I did], and it can all fall apart.

“You can’t just ask someone if they’re good at something. You need to test it. The impact of poor recruitment, both financially and culturally, is massive. You [therefore] need to minimise hiring mistakes, and one way to do that is by testing, not just asking.”

A recruitment agent’s job is (partly) to work what’s true about you

My take? IT contractors often lie to me, and before you say, “Well, recruiters are just as bad” -- I agree with you! I’m not going to patronise anyone about the professional and moral obligations of telling the truth or suggest that contractors who spin the truth are any worse than recruiters who do the same.

What I do want to look at is why the agent who insisted on the Excel walkthrough takes such an approach. Do be aware, the posting agent is like the majority of recruiters, and in addition, technical tests are being increasingly mandated from the agency’s client – the end-user.

When I started out in recruitment, my boss at the time told me,:

“Everything a contractor says could be a lie; it’s your job to work out if it’s true or not.”

Like most reading this, I initially interpreted his statement as, “I have a low opinion of people and everyone is bad.”

However, that wasn’t his mindset. His mindset was that some, not all, will lie, and you need to seek evidence from those good folk to give them the best chance.

It’s a bit like Health & Safety officers -- they don’t just look to fix a health and safety issue once someone is hurt; rather, they examine the whole process to prevent incidents and look after everyone.

Telling porkies

What this recruiter shared online is probably what 99% of good recruiters think.

The job of recruiter makes you a sceptic, and you need to question and challenge in order to trust. Those who take candidates at face value are often disappointed when candidates don’t show up to the interview or for day one of the contract, despite saying they would.

Experienced contractors we place know that recruiters have client relationships to protect, and putting someone in front of a client who is telling porkies could jeopardise months or even years of hard work and good will that’s been built up. And clients want to know, increasingly, that we have total trust in the candidate we’re putting forward and that they, 100%, know their onions. Trust, then, is the new pre-requisite.

Editing your assignment or work history to cover up early termination

It’s fair to say not every job goes well. There are bad employers, and equally, there are candidates who can’t or don’t want to give their all to a job.

But it is the candidate who chooses to remove a job or contract which didn’t go to plan from their LinkedIn and /or CV. Why?

Well, often they don’t want to explain why the contract was a bit sticky or even got cancelled early.

Be aware, to find out if all your dates match up as an IT contractor, one of the things recruiters do is look at the ‘Comments’ on your LinkedIn profile to see if there are any updates announcing, “I have started a new role with company X.”

Most LinkedIn users know that once they add a new employment status to LinkedIn, it shares that as a ‘post’. Even if you later delete the role from your profile, the post itself remains. If someone had a three-month stint somewhere and removed it, then extended the pre and post-jobs by one or two months each, this can be misleading. It gets recruiters’ backs up when they work out the truth.

So I would not recommend picking and choosing what roles to keep on your CV and which to remove. Most likely your LinkedIn or another version of your CV that’s held on a recruiter’s system will get you caught out.

Make sure everything matches up and don’t skew the dates to fit your preferred assignment or work history.

Skills-based interview questions are increasingly being asked

Even if you edit your work history successfully, skills and competency-based interview questions are on the rise.

Organisations are increasingly looking for evidence and examples of your skills.

For example, they might say, “Give me a specific example of where you have used X technology?”

Then the agent or hiring manager will probe into how you used it and why. A good interviewer or agent using this interview technique can often distinguish between those giving facts versus fiction.

Technical assessments are on the rise

We’re seeing more and more businesses asking recruiters to facilitate technical assessments during the interview process, or handling a technical test of skills themselves, internally.

I’ve previously written about the totally unethical instances of candidates getting their more skilled friends or colleague to pretend to be them during the technical test, to ensure a higher score!

Unfortunately, we’ve had contractors who’ve thought they can get around the system, by even getting their more affable friend to sit the entire interview! The hope is that clients won’t notice  because the recruiter was external. They ultimately hope the difference between Person A  - interviewer and assessment-taker and Person B – who did neither but turns up for work, won’t be noticed.

The reputational fallout here is severe, so don’t do it!

Referencing

Putting aside the ethics and legal complications that giving false references can have, it’s likely recruiters and hiring managers will research with their network to see if you’re the right contractor for the job.

If they know someone at your former client, they will call and have a confidential chat with that person to see if you’re telling the truth.

Most agents will probably ask around until they do find someone connected to their network, who can give the inside track about a candidate.

Final thoughts, including the dangerous ‘I’ll give it a go, and I’m sure I can get my head around it’

I understand why some candidates tell untruths. The pressure of bills to pay, the gap on the CV getting longer and longer, and even those who have the internal confidence to tell themselves, “I’ll give it a go and I’m sure I can get my head around it.”

But all of those are the very reason the posting recruiter who ran the Excel pop test takes the sceptical approach outlined at the top!

Contractors must expect to be challenged and asked for evidence because the reality is, not all of the contracting community is 100% truthful at all times. Just like any other community. Fortunately, most contractors and recruiters want the same thing; they just need to support each other in this endeavour by both being totally truthful.