Nothing but the truth

Greg Wyatt • October 3, 2024

I came across a post about lying in recruitment today, and most of the respondents indicated it’s a dealbreaker and a sign of human awfulness.

Which reminded me of this article, written last year, as a counterpoint to my sister’s then recently published book.

She really liked my suggestion of ‘Nothing but the truth’ as its name, but told me her agent vetoed it on the grounds that negative titles don’t sell. Sounds true, yet maybe she was just protecting my feelings.

Truth is an interesting concept. Can you tell a lie, by only telling truths?

Does having an ideal require that you lie to uphold it?

Is lying morally permissible if it only benefits others, and not yourself?

Anyway, reading it back, it’s quite good, and you might enjoy it too:

At the end of her speech, my sister made a simple request:

“Put your hand in the air if you’ve lied today.”

Only one person didn’t put their hand up – me.

Lying’s not in my nature, except in a couple of specific situations where no harm is caused.

You can believe that or not, up to you.

The earlier part of the speech touched on all those little moments in our lives where we tell a little lie, either to ourselves or someone else.

Sometimes it’s to protect feelings. Sometimes to protect ourselves.

Sometimes it’s to keep up the narrative of how we are perceived because we don’t want to share our secret selves.

It was a great launch for a book on how society doesn’t just put up with lies to function, it may even rely on them.

She interviewed a wide range of experts on lying including spies and toddler scientists, showed how the face can lie, and talked about her amnesia and what it was like to be in the closet.

She didn’t interview me about recruitment, so I’m putting that right today.

Lies are rampant everywhere you look in recruitment.

In a survey last year, 51% of respondents admitted to lying on their CVs.

I expect the true number to be higher, considering some won’t even admit a lie to themselves.

It’s common to extrapolate behaviour from what we experience. One lie may lead to more, and that may be the only reason you need to reject a candidate.

Not all lies are born equal.

Broadly I differentiate them between lies of impact, lies to protect, and lies of inconsequence.

A lie of impact is one which leads to a decision based on that lie.

Here an example would be John Andrewes, who lied about his experience and qualifications to land a top NHS job.

He was jailed for 2 years and required to pay £100k, the remainder of his assets.

Fraud.

Or lying about reasons for departure – they say redundancy, they meant gross misconduct.

Misrepresenting capability and qualifications.

Mispresenting a role to make it more appealing.

£Competitive salary, when you meant lowball to get a deal.

The lies we should find and cull at the earliest opportunity.

A lie to protect can be many things.

I remember an HR candidate early in my career who changed her name twice. It was highly suspicious to me at the time.

“Apunanwu Oluwayo” became “Apunanwu Roberts” became “Judith Roberts”.

This first change suggested a marriage or divorce. The second I couldn’t fathom.

What a liar, 2005 Greg thought.

Of course, now I know better.

It’s likely she changed her name to a British one because she suffered from namism – one report indicates candidates are 60% less likely to receive a callback with a foreign-sounding name.

Despite my ignorance, I gave Judith the benefit of the doubt and invited her to interview.

You can see why blind CVs are a fair measure to prevent this happen, although I wonder if it’s better to treat the illness rather than rely on palliative measures.

How about not disclosing identifiable education for the same reasons?

What about disability and neurodivergence?

If a condition requires an accommodation to fulfil a role, is non-disclosure a lie by omission?

Another could be lying about reasons for departure – they said ‘left to focus on a job search’, they meant they couldn’t put up with a harmful environment any longer.

A lie of protection, which isn’t one of impact, should be clarified but, in my opinion, not penalised without investigation.

The lie above is one of protection – I changed the names to protect the individual, one of the situations in which I will lie deliberately, with good reason.

How about a lie of inconsequence?

By this I mean a lie that doesn’t impact employability, reflect capability or have any bearing on what that person is like to work with.

Examples here might be fudging employment dates to prevent the question “Why were you unemployed for 2 days in 2012?”

Or perhaps they might say People Business Partner on their CV, which they fulfilled functionally, yet had a misrepresentative job title of Operations Manager.

Sometimes what seem to be lies of impact, might be lies of inconsequence:

I once had a candidate withdraw from an interview.

Aladdin said his father had passed away, and he had decided to suspend his job search.

I spoke to the hiring manager, Jaffar, and said “This smacks of lying” principally because of a change in behaviour that didn’t seem related to grief, and the very high mortality rate candidates sometimes experience throughout recruitment.

It was a tough vacancy to fill, so we made a plan. Jaffar would contact him directly a couple of weeks after, to check in and see if he fancied a pint.

We put our suspicion aside, while also considering how he might have perceived his relationship with me.

Long story short Aladdin took the job and was there for eight years. He gave me a lovely recommendation too.

I’m pleased to say his father made a full recovery.

While this appears to be a lie of impact, it’s actually one of inconsequence.

He lied because he didn’t feel safe telling me he was having second thoughts. That’s on me, because it is my job to create a safe space for candidates so that they trust me and tell me inconvenient truths.

It’s not dissimilar to the hilariously high rate of car breakdowns in recruitment.

Have we considered our part in that lie?

These three types of lies are a gross simplification to paint the picture.

Our perception of lying is highly subjective, and there is no one right answer.

I think it’s understandable to feel a lie is a dealbreaker.

For lies of impact, this should be the case.

For other lies though, perhaps a judgment call is better than an assumption. Why did that person lie? Could it even be something we did?

Does that lie really matter?

And if it does matter – how many times have you lied in the same way today?

The next eminently-an-epistole is on technical debt in recruitment, and why we should consider the long-term impact of a short-term compromise.

Regards,

Greg

P.s. if you’re interested in Kathleen’s book, you can read about it here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Superpower-Truth-About-Little-ebook/dp/B09MDWNL44

A standard diagnostic

By Greg Wyatt • October 22, 2026
The other day I read a LinkedIn post about the iron triangle as it relates to recruitment. That you can be fast and good, but it will be expensive. That you can be fast and cheap, and it will be bobbins. Or that you can be cheap and good, but it will take longer than the heat death of the universe. At first glance it’s always made sense, with caveats, though that sense has been ablated with the promise of AI. Something that promises to be quicker, cheaper and better than people can manage. The only thing this triangle lacks is judgement-with-responsibility, something AI-style LLMs are currently incapable of, which is why they can be such problematic technology for recruitment. Though if your priority is speed, saving money, and filling jobs, the lack of judgement in even those algorithms that promise black box bias freedom might not be a problem you’d think much about. And when the top is spinning in an elegant way this might seem a standardisation you can apply everywhere, while you get on with your day job. Sadly the only place a spinning top doesn’t stop is when you were dreaming all along. AI has made me think about why the fundamentals of recruitment are so important, using judgement before we launch our projects. Which is why I like the 5Cs of project management as a way to look at recruitment: complexity, criticality, compliance, culture, compassion. With an adaptation and an additional C to be fit for purpose. It’s a great way to consider what approach to deploy: Complexity: the number of moving parts in a role, supply and demand in the candidate market, resources required to engage and bring forward the right people Criticality: the impact a vacancy has on the organisation. The opportunity a great hire brings. The damage the wrong hire can cause. And everything in between Channels: we go where the candidates are, whether at the end a headhunt, from an advert, from sourcing across LinkedIn Recruiter/equivalent tools, CV Databases, ATS records, other platforms, internal applicants, suppliers, consultants, temps, networking, referrals or even from a little black book, which I suspect will become more relevant again when data becomes noise Compliance: not just employment law, but how technology is used to find, engage and assess candidates in a fair, equitable and inclusive way Context: the full picture of the company – its organisational and local cultures, principles and values, mission, vision, goals, challenges and trajectory. The nuts and bolts, what that means for your candidates, and trying to understand the same in them Compassion: recognition of the impact a vacancy has on the employer and its team, balanced with how everyone can be brought together. And compassion for everyone that interacts with our recruitment, in process or invisibly Yes, I swapped context for culture. Hiring for context necessarily includes culture, and goes much further. And I've added Channels, which should always be established before going to market. I like these because they’re a way to ensure that how you recruit is proportionate and appropriate. They may even highlight you shouldn’t hire at all. But what you shouldn’t do is assume one recruitment process is the same as the next, nor that the investment made in reaching desired outcomes should be. What may seem expensive to you might bring an unexpected return on investment. What seems slow at the outset might bring a starter quicker than hoped – proper planning and all that. What seems good quality might fall apart, when the promises prove inadequate. That’s why it’s so important to diagnose first, before standardising. Greg p.s. You're welcome to try my free Hiring Diagnostic & Plan . It's not based on the 6Cs, which I think require more depth than a free tool can reasonably provide. Instead, it draws on principles from other disciplines: True and Fair from accounting, and Suitable and Sufficient from health and safety. It's free and private. Give it a go, and let me know if you'd like to chat through how the 6Cs might apply to your recruitment and enhance the resul 

Introduction to the hidden jobs market

By Greg Wyatt • October 14, 2026
On Wednesday 21st, I'll be doing a LinkedIn Live on The Hidden Jobs Market, joined by Paul Woodhouse. Paul is a marketing leader who has been looking for work in our challenging market. A previous role was a Hidden Job, and has also hired people himself. We'll be looking at his experiences to give a little substance to what can be a nebulous term. I'll show the steps anyone can take to become available for unadvertised vacancies, and for advertised vacancies that are filled by other means - after all employers consider more than only applications when taking a standard approach to recruitment. As a recruiter I don't advertise around half my vacancies, which might be for reasons of confidentiality, a lack of definition in the brief, a on the QT replacement for someone about to be dismissed, or mass availability of candidates. I'll use LinkedIn Recruiter to look for potential candidates, CV databases that can be more effective for immediate hires, my network for referrals and recommendations. My previous candidate pools for other vacancies - some of whom might have once open a time been applicants. Indeed, that last point shows the absurdity of much job search advice. If you apply for a vacancy on an ATS, you might be rejected, yet still be considered for future vacancies in the same employer. A hidden job hidden by an advertised job, where tailoring your CV with AI might make you less likely to be considered. Join us on Wednesday, or if you aren't free, the recording will be available immediately. Both can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7516049669924225027?viewAsMember=true . The chapter below from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) shows a simple metaphor for the hidden jobs market, why it's such a silly term, and a better way to think about your own job search. 3 - The hidden jobs market In most of the calls I have with job seekers they will ask me about The Hidden Jobs Market. What is it? Is it real? How can I access it? Before we get into that, we should talk about tomatoes. As you read this next section, imagine a tomato is a job. So, you want to procure some tomatoes. How would you? Your local farm shop. The supermarket. Wednesday’s stalls. Maybe you subscribe to a weekly box of veg. Maybe you grow your own. Maybe you trade for the tomatoes from Tim’s allotment. Maybe you look at people funny when they ask for an intro to Tim because his tomatoes are wonderful. You likely wouldn’t buy some from Amazon - they don’t sell fresh food. Not to me anyway. Though you might buy tomato seeds from Amazon if you grow your own. Maybe even cans of crushed tomato, sauce, puree, or whatever meets your needs. As the channel you use to source tomatoes isn’t the only consideration, so too is the configuration of what you need. While you and others all access tomatoes in different ways, some of which overlap, and some of which are mutually exclusive - none of these channels are hidden. It’s just that you may not know how to access some channels, while others won’t be available to you. Now I want you to read that section again. Instead of being your desired job, you are an employer whose desired tomato is a candidate of choice. While recruitment is the inverse of a job search (more on this later), the analogy is better from the employer perspective because they are on a buyer’s journey where you are the product. Employers want to fill their vacancies through the best means. Some vacancies are easy to fill, others not so, and they will access the channels necessary to find the right people. In many situations, they won’t advertise a vacancy, which might be for reasons of confidentiality or convenience. Some say this is as much as 80%, a flawed figure which comes from a flawed survey, or perhaps it comes from a newspaper article in 1974 before computers were a thing. In my recent small-scale research, it was indicated more than 62% of vacancies are advertised. 53% responded they advertise more than 75% of vacancies. Many of the respondents were headhunters, whose business may be based on not running public adverts. I expect this will have skewed the results lower than the true figure. What employers don’t do is hide vacancies systematically. To access these vacancies, you need to understand the channels through which employers hire and invert these channels to form your strategy. Much like how tomatoes are sold through channels which consumers buy from. Is the hidden jobs market real? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that not all jobs are advertised. Some are confidential, some for reasons as mundane as not wanting to deal with hundreds of advert applicants. No, because it isn’t a term that has inherent meaning. Speak to people who advocate for it, often a career coach, and they’ll tell you it’s anything from personal branding and networking to going direct and being referred in. When vacancies aren’t advertised by employers, they often fill them through sourcing - this is a specialist skill related to finding people where they may be found: LinkedIn, CV databases, corporate databases, GitHub, Facebook, YouTube. These are all channels you can access as part of an appropriate multichannel strategy. Which means if you have the right multichannel strategy (I call this Through-the-Line, which we’ll cover in parts 2 and 3), you access all jobs available to you, including those which are hidden and those which are in witness protection on another continent. Who are the headhunters that specialise in your domain? Who are the people who can refer you to jobs? How can you be more discoverable on LinkedIn and CV databases? How can you gain an understanding of the ways in which your ideal job is recruited, so you can take advantage of those channels? Those are better questions to answer to allow an effective through-the-line, multichannel strategy involving outbound and inbound leads. Despite me being vocal about why Hidden is a flawed notion, two people have thanked me for advice that led to their new roles claiming they’d accessed the hidden jobs market. As I gritted my teeth in hidden rage and congratulated them on their success, they unveiled the truth. What they actually did was map out their real life network of people they’d worked with and got in touch. If the people you know don’t know that you are looking for a role, what reason would they have to tell you about a vacancy? It’s simple marketing - right place (LinkedIn), right person (ex-colleague), right message (looking for work), right time (we’ve a vacancy). Of course, that takes a bit of luck to achieve the right congruence. Odds you increase through volume and follow up. And when you do find those opportunities, they are easier to win because you are a known name, not another unknown CV. There it is, the hidden tomato market.