ARE you saying you started secondary school at the age of five? Please take your papers and leave." The human resources director stared at the interviewee in disbelief. The setting was the Human Resources Department of a manufacturing company. The young man being addressed tried to explain to the interviewer, but could not offer any plausible reason. He was one of several applicants short-listed for interview after a written test.

Many employers probably believe that the rules for finding and keeping top performers have changed. Corporate organisations prefer a certain age bracket for jobs hitherto reserved for more mature men and women. This explains the age specification that comes with most vacancy advertisement.

The trend has led to falsification of age, as desperate job seekers doctor their dates of birth in order to meet firms’ employment requirement.

Alhaja Bola Akingbade, an Assistant Director of Public Relations, Office of the Surveyor-General, Lagos State, said the practice has been reduced to the barest minimum because every data in the civil service is now computerised.

Alhaja Akingbade recalled that in those days, workers in the public service falsified information about their age to elongate their length of service,

http://ngjobsncareers.com/2011/02/why-do-jobseekers-falsify-their-age.html