Although only 8 per cent of workers admitted to stretching the truth on their résumés, nearly half of hiring managers reported that they have caught a candidate lying on his or her résumé, according to a CareerBuilder.com survey of more than 3,100 hiring managers and over 8,700 workers in the US.

If you get caught, the fib can cost you the job. More than half of the employers who had caught someone lying said they automatically dismissed the applicant. A small percentage (6 per cent) ended up hiring the applicant anyway.

The most common résumé lies included embellishing responsibilities and skills, fudging dates of employment and faking degrees and job titles. But some people got more creative, according to the hiring managers. They cited applicants that:

• Claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family.

• Invented a school that did not exist.

• Submitted a résumé with someone else’s photo inserted into the document.

• Listed military experience dating back to before he was born.

• Included samples of work, which the interviewer actually did.

• Claimed to have been a professional baseball player.

Pretty hilarious. Unless, of course, those hiring managers just made them up.