Posted on 25 Nov, 2025

Private investigators are good at many things besides just finding missing people or following cheating spouses. They are experts at finding hidden truths, checking facts, and spotting lies. These skills are also very helpful when it comes to recruitment.

This is why more and more companies are changing the way they hire, because CV fraud and costly bad hires are becoming more common. Recent data from the industry shows that a bad hire at the mid-management level can cost a business as much as £132,000. Because of this, HR departments are looking for better ways to check candidates. Most of the time, traditional background checks only look at the surface and don't show any worrying patterns or inconsistencies in a candidate's history.

Interestingly, it seems that more and more HR departments in the UK are using private investigators to help them hire people, or using these skills themselves, particularly for management and senior levels. We thought we’d delve into this addition to the hiring process.

The cost of hiring the wrong person

When you hire someone, the costs go up a lot more than just the initial costs. The Recruitment & Employment Confederation says that hiring the wrong person for mid-level management for £42,000 can cost a business more than £132,000. Hiring the wrong person costs more than just money. When teams have to work with coworkers who might not be qualified, morale and productivity can drop because mistakes are found that need to be fixed. This in turn causes the client relationships to suffer when promised expertise which turns out to be non-existent.

Problems with normal background checks

Standard background checks are useful, but they have some problems that private investigators can fix. Most of the time, these checks only look at a person's criminal record, which doesn't tell the whole story about who they are and where they came from.

Static databases that don't get updated in real time are often used for traditional verification methods. This makes the information out of date and doesn't include recent changes that are important for figuring out current risk profiles. Also, a lot of checks require people to enter and verify data by hand, which takes a long time and is easy to mess up.

To get around these problems, private investigators do thorough background checks that are specific to each case. Instead of offering one-size-fits-all online services, they create custom packages that meet the needs of each client. Private investigators check potential employees' criminal records, employment histories, and reasons for leaving jobs to get a better idea of who they are.

The rise in fake resumes

There are so many fake resumes out there that it's even more important to carefully screen candidates. Cifas's most recent study shows that almost 20% of people in the UK have either lied about their qualifications on their CV or know someone who has done so in the past year. This is an increase from 17% in 2021.

This trend is especially strong among people who are looking for work who are younger. 38% of people between the ages of 16 and 24 said they had lied on their CV or knew someone who had. The 35–44 age group comes in second, with almost a third (30%) saying the same thing.

Modern technology has made this problem a lot worse. A YouGov poll for Hedd found that 67% of large companies have seen more job application fraud. They think this is because people are using AI tools to improve or fake their experience or qualifications.

AI is making CVs and cover letters that look real in just a few minutes and making up fake professional identities with fake backgrounds.

Private investigators are very good at figuring out when someone is lying by using advanced interviewing methods, looking at social media, and thoroughly checking credentials. Most hiring processes don't look for these skills. As resume fraud gets more complex, their ability to find it becomes even more useful.

Important Skills That Make Private Investigators Great at Hiring

Every good private investigator has a set of special tools that help them find the right people to hire, which go beyond the normal hiring practices. This can give businesses an edge in finding and hiring the best people.

Structured interviewing techniques help to find out the truth. Most people use the PEACE framework, which stands for Planning and Preparation, Engage and Explain, Account, Closure, and Evaluate. This method makes sure that all the information is collected completely while still being honest and professional.

Before each interview, investigators make detailed profiles of the candidates. These profiles help them find holes in the candidates' stories. They are very good at using active listening skills to show interest while keeping an eye out for non-verbal cues that might show dishonesty.

Investigators learn how to avoid the problems that often come up in job interviews:

1. Asking questions that get you the answers you want.

2. Cutting candidates off when they are trying to explain something important.

3. Being biased or making decisions that make it hard for people to be honest.

Their ability to spot lies through behavioural analysis is an important extra layer of protection against candidates who might otherwise get through normal screening processes.

Looking at digital footprints and social media

Private detectives have got better at digital sleuthing in today's world, where everything is linked. They look closely at candidates' online activity on different platforms to see if there are any character flaws that could affect their work. 70% of employers now look at social media in some way before hiring, according to research. Private investigators do more than just basic searches. They also look at comment histories, patterns of association, and online behaviour that could show worrying traits.

Checking and reviewing a digital footprint audit lets recruiters make sure that a candidate's CV persona matches their real-life persona. It also helps them get a better idea of the candidate's character. By looking at how people participate in industry forums and make professional contributions, this process helps find both warning signs and good signs of expertise.

Verifying credentials and a candidate's work history

During the verification process, private investigators use strict methods to check facts. Monster's Future of Work Outlook says that nearly two-thirds of employers believe that job seekers lie about their skills and qualifications on their resumes.

To solve this common problem, investigators check in a number of different ways:

1. Contacting past employers directly to confirm job titles, dates, and reasons for leaving.

2. Checking claims against records and databases that are official.

3. Checking educational achievements with registrars and administration offices.

4. This thorough method helps find candidates who lie about gaps in their work history by changing dates, which is a common trick that regular background checks often miss.

Looking for hidden warning signs outside of the CV

Professional investigators are good at noticing little things that might mean someone is lying or doing something wrong. They look closely at people's work histories for patterns, like moving around jobs a lot without a good reason or gaps that aren't explained. Private investigators also look for things that don't match up, like job titles, timelines, and duties. 

Unlike regular recruiters, investigators will pay closer attention to how candidates talk about their past job changes. They have issues with people who say they were "Operations Director" at a company with only a few employees that went out of business quickly. They pay close attention to gaps in work histories that don't make sense. These could be signs of firings or times when someone acted badly.

Why do some businesses now use private detectives as recruiters?

Many companies are now considering using investigators to help them hire people. Changes in the workplace are causing this trend to happen. Adding private investigators to the hiring process is a big change in how businesses choose who to hire.

Investigators can be extremely helpful particularly for executive positions, sensitive roles, and situations where internal referrals are involved. This is because they can find problems that could hurt a company's reputation or put its security at risk. Their careful but thorough method makes sure that candidates are judged on their own merits and not on who they know.

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