An Assessment of the Prevalence, Severity, and Verifiability of Entry-Level Applicant Faking Using the Randomized Response Technique

The issue of applicant response distortion is a potentially important concern for those who administer noncognitive self-report selection measures. Although it is clear that noncognitive measures can be easily faked and that faking may reduce the utility of these measures, there has been a paucity of research that has directly assessed the prevalence of applicant response distortion. This study used the randomized-response technique to estimate the base rate of entry-level job applicant faking during the application process. The results revealed that a substantial number of recent job applicants did report engaging in varying degrees of misrepresentation, and that the base rate for faking is strongly related to both the severity and verifiability of the deceptive behavior. Implications for personnel selection are presented.