Resume lies are commonly told by Australian jobhunters. Here is how it can land you in jail

Lying on a resume is a common act for Aussie jobhunters, and it definitely has its advantages for those who get away with it, recent surveys show.

But a deceptive CV can also land applicants with a hefty fine, or even in jail — with one Sydney lawyer telling 7NEWS.com.au that the maximum penalty for possible offences is a decade behind bars.

In two recent surveys of about 1000 Aussies each, one found that 33 per cent of respondents had lied on their resume, and the other clocked the figure at 42 per cent.

The latter survey by StandOut Resume also found that the liars get paid $15,000 more on average than the honest applicants, with three quarters of the respondents who lied in a job application saying that they were never caught.

But Astor Legal principal lawyer Avinash Singh told 7NEWS.com.au that a quarter (24.2 per cent) of Aussies have lied about something that could end in criminal prosecution.

“If you lie on your resume you will have committed an offence of ‘dishonestly obtain advantage by deception’,” Singh told 7NEWS.com.au.

He said the offence carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment.

“There have been notable examples in recent years of people being convicted, and some even being sentenced to jail for claiming to have qualifications that they did not actually have,” Singh said.

“These have included police officers and school principals.”

Dishonest employees can also be sued for the wages they earned while in the job they lied to get.

“Once a person has been discovered, an employer can report the matter to the police. If the person has been employed by a business or government body based on a deceptive resume, then the employer can sue the employee for any wages they paid them,” Singh said.

The illegal lies, and who tells them

There are a number of lies that can result in a criminal charge.

Lying about educational qualifications, or the school or university that one attended, are the lies that Singh said most commonly result in charges — with 2.8 per cent and 1.1 per cent of Aussie’s admitting to telling the lies respectively, according to research by Tapt.

Employment dates are the most commonly lied about detail on resumes, with 10.1 per cent opting for the fib.

Lying about a previous job title was next, with 6.1 per cent of Aussie applicants choosing to fabricate the detail.

Failing to disclose a career break, or lying about it in another way, was common among 3.9 per cent of Australian jobseekers.

Metrics and accomplishments are embellished by 2.6 per cent of people.

Lies about former employees were told by 2.5 per cent, fake references were given by 2.2 per cent, lies about volunteer work were told by 2 per cent, lies about the school or university attended were told by 1.1 per cent.

Entire positions were made up by 1.1 percent, and lies about criminal history were told by 0.8 per cent.

Men are more likely to lie, according to Tapt, with 34.9 per cent confessing to stretching the truth compared to 31.2 per cent of women.

Age-wise, applicants aged between 25 and 34 were the cohort most likley to lie, with more than four in ten admitting to resume lies.

“This could be due to the rising level of competition in the job market for entry-level and lower-tier roles, pushing young job seekers to stretch the truth in an effort to stand out and secure employment,” the Tapt report said.

Professionals caught in the act

Neil Lennie became a Melbourne school headmaster and faked his way through a two decade-long teaching career before he was caught in 2014.

He claimed various degrees he never obtained and used his father’s legitimate teacher registration over a 24-year career between 1976 and 2000.

He worked at Mount Scopus Memorial College, Haileybury College and Overnewton Anglican Community College, and spent six years as a headmaster at Caulfield Grammar School over the 1980s and 1990s.

Despite his lack of qualifications, students including inaugural Doherty Institute director, Professor Sharon Lewin AO, considered him one of their most outstanding teachers.

He was charged $8000 by the Victorian Institute of Teaching which referred him to police — Lennie admitted in Victoria’s County Court to four counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception in the form of pay worth $843,567.

He was sentenced to three months jail, and a 12 month community corrections order.

Former WA politician and police officer Barry Urban — who died after he was punched in his workplace in 2024 — spent 18 months in jail after he was found to have embellished his educational background, forging documents that claimed degrees he didn’t have.

In 2001, Urban used his fake qualifications to help in his application for the WA Police Force, which was unsuccessful. However, after applying again four years later, Urban was accepted and served as a police officer until his resignation in 2012.

In a 2007 application for accelerated entry as a detective he falsely claimed, among other things, that he had been seconded to an international task force to investigate war crimes in Bosnia in the late 1990s — he also wore fake medals he claimed were for the effort.

He was charged with 21 offences, and pleaded guilty to seven — the other 14 charges dropped before he was sentenced to three years with an 18-month non-parole period.