Integrity and the Job Seeker
What’s Happening to Professionalism and Integrity in Hiring?
After 20 years in recruitment, I am becoming increasingly concerned about some of the behaviours we are seeing in the hiring process.
Not because candidates are negotiating. Not because people are changing jobs more frequently. And not because applicants are using AI.
Those things are part of an evolving employment landscape.
What concerns me is something more fundamental: a decline in transparency, professional courtesy and, in some situations, integrity.
Integrity is one of those qualities that reveals itself in seemingly small interactions:
How accurately you represent your experience.
How you communicate when circumstances change.
Whether you honour commitments.
Whether your words and actions align.
How you treat someone's time—even when there is nothing left for you to gain from the interaction.
None of these things require perfection. They require professionalism and respect.
1. The growing gap between stated and demonstrated qualifications
I don't know whether AI has made this easier, but it has certainly made it easier to create eye-catching resumes and complete responses using terminology that can suggest expertise someone doesn't actually possess.
We have several checkpoints before an applicant reaches an in-person interview, yet we are increasingly encountering candidates whose stated qualifications simply don't hold up once we start having direct conversations.
When challenged, we've actually heard:
"Oh well, I thought I would try."
There is nothing wrong with stretching yourself, and I believe in applying for a role even if you only meet 70% of the qualifications. I love it when I see someone confidently take a chance on themselves. But do that by telling us you're a fast learner, or explain why your transferable experience makes you worth considering. Be transparent about where your experience ends and where your ability to learn begins.
At what point does confidently taking a chance on yourself cross the line into misrepresentation?
2. Ghosting at every stage of recruitment
We're seeing candidates schedule interviews and simply not show up.
We're seeing candidates complete interviews, indicate they are very interested, and then disappear.
We're seeing candidates progress through extensive screening and reference checks and then stop responding.
We're even seeing candidates receive a formal offer and then simply stop responding.
No decline. No explanation. No simple email saying, "Thank you, but I've decided to pursue another opportunity."
They just disappear.
I get that people change their minds, better opportunities come along, or personal circumstances change. Sometimes an interview itself tells you that a job isn't right for you, and that is okay too! But send the email.
Professional courtesy shouldn't disappear simply because you no longer need something from the other party.
If we expect employers to communicate when a candidate isn't selected, shouldn't we expect the same professional courtesy when a candidate decides not to proceed?
3. Applying without the essential requirements
We've had applicants for CPA positions with no accounting education or experience.
We've had applicants for management positions who have never held a job.
We've received applications for administrative professional positions where the resume itself is full of errors and there is no relevant experience.
Again, I don't believe candidates need to check every box, as some of the best hires I've seen didn't, but there is a significant difference between not meeting every preferred qualification and applying for a position with specific skills for which you have none of the essential requirements.
This matters to us because we don't use AI to screen applicants, and we don't have an automated system deciding who deserves consideration and moves through the process. We still believe in the benefit of having a human being go through every application.
When 200 people apply for a job and only 10 have relevant qualifications, someone has spent considerable time reviewing 190 applications that had little realistic connection to the role. Those requirements aren't put into a job posting for fun, and I promise if a position requires a specific certification, technical competency, education or level of experience, it is usually because the successful candidate will actually need those to perform the job.
Applying when you don't check every box is betting on yourself. Applying when you meet virtually none of the essential requirements stops being a strategic stretch and creates unnecessary work in an already time-intensive process.
You don't necessarily need the experience if you can credibly demonstrate the ability.
4. Significant changes in compensation expectations at the offer stage
This one is particularly frustrating because we pride ourselves on transparency.
We require our clients to post their salary ranges.
We work hard to ensure those ranges are relevant to both the market and the responsibilities of the position.
Candidates know the range before applying, and they know it during the interview process.
We give candidates multiple opportunities to share their salary expectations or requirements, and when those expectations fall outside the posted range, we have the conversation with our client when we believe there is a reasonable rationale for doing so.
Yet we are increasingly getting all the way through a recruitment, selecting the preferred candidate, preparing an offer, and then finding ourselves in a salary misalignment.
Asking thoughtful questions about compensation, benefits, vacation, flexibility, and the total package is entirely appropriate, as is thoughtful negotiation, even above the posted salary range when there is a valid reason for it.
This isn't about being unwilling to negotiate or refusing to pay someone what they are worth. The issue is transparency and integrity throughout the process.
If a candidate knows from the beginning that the posted salary range will not be acceptable, that conversation needs to happen early. What becomes problematic is progressing through multiple interviews and conversations, allowing an employer to believe there is alignment, and then significantly changing the compensation expectations at the offer stage. When this happens it no longer feels like good-faith negotiation, it puts the employer in a difficult position: accept a materially different expectation or walk away after investing considerable time and resources in the process.
When this happens with our clients, I remind them not to feel pressured to proceed simply because of the time already invested.
Why? Because the concern is no longer simply about salary, it is about how the relationship began.
If there is a legitimate reason to negotiate above the range, like exceptional experience, additional responsibilities, market considerations, or something we hadn't contemplated, we can have that conversation. Great employers should be willing to listen, however, there is an important difference between negotiating in good faith and allowing everyone to work toward a false sense of alignment only to fundamentally change the expectations at the eleventh hour.
Compensation can be negotiated. Trust is much harder to renegotiate.
5. And employers need to hold themselves to the same standard
We don't get to demand integrity from candidates if we aren't prepared to demonstrate it ourselves.
Companies should not ghost candidates either.
We should post realistic salary ranges. We should communicate honestly about positions. We should respect people's time. We should not advertise jobs that don't exist, drag people through endless interviews, or suddenly change compensation or expectations at the end of the process.
Honesty, transparency and integrity have to exist on both sides of the table.
Recruitment is one of the first opportunities we have to experience someone's character, not just their credentials.
Integrity shows up before the first day of work. It shows up in how accurately we represent ourselves, how we communicate, whether we honour commitments, how we negotiate, and how we treat people when circumstances change.
And that applies equally to the candidate and the employer.
Skills can be developed. Experience can be gained. Knowledge can be taught.
But when someone gives you reason to question their integrity before the employment relationship has even begun, even the most impressive resume becomes a lot less impressive.