The truth will always come out in the end.

As the mother of three primary aged kids I’m constantly negotiating my way through a labyrinth of lies and convenient half truths. Whether it’s about teeth cleaning, doing homework or who raided the chocolate biscuits. In most cases I feel like I am losing the battle in this space.

The other day I did feel slightly reassured when my eight year old came home from school incredulous at the stupidity of a classmate who continued to lie in the face of damning evidence of the real truth. She looked at me and said “I don’t understand why he keep saying he hadn’t done it was so obvious he had.” An overwhelming sense of relief swept over me – at least she has the good sense to know the importance of fessing up and my message was finally getting through. Colin Craig, Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton beware – the facts will always eventually get in the way to make an even better story!!!

The reality is that the truth will always come out and that is never more true than in our current digital age where we have so much information at our fingers tips and people’s previously considered private lives are now pretty much a thing of the past. The transparency offered by social and public networks/mediums such as Facebook, Instagram, photos snapped of inappropriate behaviour at random events and then posted instantaneously without consent for all the world to see have often dire consequences.

Of course this applies to all parts of people’s lives but I won’t bore you with too much morality. What I do want to say is that a commitment to honesty and full disclosure is really important in your employment relationship and that starts when you are applying for a job?

Does it matter that you have a criminal conviction? In some cases yes if the offence/conviction goes to the heart of the job. In other cases the Clean Slate Law applies. On occasions the conviction may have no relevance to the nature of what is required in the job. However if you cover it up and then your prospective employer finds out later it’s going to look worse and bring your honesty and issues of trust and confidence in you into question. In some cases the mere fact of non disclosure of such issues in the pre employment application can lead to termination of the employment relationship later if revelations are made.

Does it matter that you had a year off work getting your life together after a particularly nasty break-up??? Once again it’s going to be much more suspicious if you fudge the dates on your CV or dodge questions with lots of vague waffle.

Communities talk (especially small ones) and if possible background issues (personal or professional) surface later that may affect suitability for a role it usually ends in disaster. Best thing is to front foot these things so the context for some of this is controlled by the job aspirant rather than gossip, innuendo and third party rumour.

Stuff happens, people make mistakes but don’t compound one mistake with another by misrepresenting yourself during the application process!

And another tip to parents with teenage kids wanting to apply for jobs…remind them the first thing recruiters usually do is to do social media checks to determine cultural and behavioural fit of potential candidates for roles they have been engaged to source. They need to periodically sanitise their social media pages.