The profession most willing to lie in a job interview

Those in professional services are more willing to lie to get the job (Source: Getty)

People working in professional services are the most willing to tell some white lies during a job interview.

Accounting, banking, financial services, HR, consulting, legal and marketing are the most likely to tell some mistruths during the interview process, according to new data from Seek which found white collar workers to be the biggest offenders.

The research found that 41 per cent of those working in professional services owned up to lying in interviews.

In comparison, 28 per cent of those who work in consumer services - call centre workers, real estate, admin, sales etc - said they would lie and only 28 per cent of public sector workers said they would bend the truth.

Seek found one of the reasons for this is because potential candidates are trying to tell the interviewer what they think they want to hear.

32 per cent of candidates said they are mostly honest, with the exception of a couple of white lies, while 8 per cent said they’re not very honest at all.

However, for the most part people present themselves honestly with 60 percent saying they are completely honest during the interview.

When it comes to getting out of a current job to attend an interview, the ways in which people go about it differs in gender.

Men were more likely to take an annual leave day (43% male vs 29% female), while females tend to call in sick (22% male vs 48% female).

But some things never change, two out of three candidates agreed they get anxious attending job interviews and 46 per cent said they’re more nervous when that interview is in person as opposed to online.

Interestingly, this was particularly the case with more senior level roles, such as senior management and CEOs, (60 per cent) who felt in-person interviews were more nerve-wracking.

According to a survey by resume website Zety, the most common interview question someone is asked is: “Tell me about yourself” while the second-most asked job interview question is: “Tell me about a challenge or conflict you faced at work and how you dealt with it”.