Honesty is Always the Best Policy Throughout the

Looking for a new role can be a very stressful process and can seem daunting to many candidates.

With an ever-increasing number of avenues to explore new roles, using a recruiter can often provide you with the best opportunities whilst offering an insightful and professional outlook on your desired sector.

Building an effective relationship and understanding each other’s needs is essential to the hiring process when liaising with a recruiter and this relationship has to be based on a mutual trust.

Why honesty is so important

With the pressure of trying to find a new role, some candidates may try to impress clients and recruiters alike by exaggerating or embellishing their achievements. However, remaining honest throughout the process is key and here are some reasons why:

Being honest helps us to help you

Specialist recruiters make it their job to understand the market and their clients' needs. Relationships with clients take time to build and maintaining these relationships is key.

We will often have information that others don’t have and will be able to provide a candidate with important information that may be the deciding factor when it comes to hiring managers making their decision. If a candidate doesn’t provide honest and accurate information, it seriously damages their chances of securing the role.

A recruiter will always have a candidate’s best interest at heart and being open and honest about your experiences, desires and professional career enables a recruiter to manage a candidate’s application with much greater results.

This is important when meeting your recruiter. Map out your history in detail and be sure to explain your goals and what aspects of a company is important to you. As a result, we will be able to outline and put you forward for a job you are completely happy with.

Don't damage your reputation

If you are a professional within a small, insular market, the last thing you want is to have your name tarnished.

If a candidate is found to be not telling the truth or withholding information about their past, relationships will be damaged and, ultimately, bridges will be burnt.

As previously mentioned, the foundation of any relationship is trust and if there are any scepticisms regarding this, it may result in other candidates being more successful. If you have exam results that you are not happy with, were in your last job shorter than you would have liked or have convictions that you are not proud of, let your recruiter know.

Recruiters are often liaising with multiple candidates at any given time and making sure you are the first candidate they think of is essential. It isn’t always the best profile that recruiters think of first, the relationship they have built is extremely important.

Being transparent and honest gives candidates the best chance to be a recruiter’s first call. A recruiter will usually go above and beyond their job role to help out these candidates.

Lies will catch up with you

Security checks are also becoming more and more stringent and delving a lot deeper into the candidate’s history. Gone are the days of 2 references being enough to secure a role, now companies are looking deeply into all previous roles, criminal record checks and even GCSE results. It is far too common that candidates provide information that they believe to be correct, without making 100% sure. This negligence will often be deemed as dishonesty and will normally result in an unsuccessful application.

So be sure to double check your results and dates before placing on documents like your CV to avoid this mistake from happening. A good recruiter will always help a candidate look for solutions to a problem and normally would have had experience dealing with the same, if not similar, scenarios.

Whether it is calling an examination board to clarify an uncertain exam result, or clarifying any unspent convictions, resolving the issue is normally something very simple, but not doing this could be the difference between securing a role and not. Never be afraid to ask!

In conclusion, being vocal and open is key for being successful in finding a new job and building effective relationships. Discuss any issues that you may have as most of the time they will not hinder you from securing your dream job. Also be sure to explain in detail what it is that you want from an employer/ in a job so we as recruiters can help provide solutions – Honesty is always the best policy!