In a recent podcast, Guardian Careers debated whether employers were asking too much of graduates, as application processes become increasingly challenging and creative. But, as we've seen from lots of stories recently – such as the "Jobless Paddy" billboard and Ulrike Shultz's The London Job Twitter efforts – graduates are taking the initiative themselves too.
Here's some trends James Callander, managing director of recruitment consultancy FreshMinds Talent, has noticed:
One of the first things we have noticed is more and more candidates sending hard copies of their CVs and covering letters on expensive headed paper. CVs have increasingly been arriving in fancy envelopes and we have seen some very glittery stationery come through our letterbox. Similarly, many more can candidates have been dropping in off the streets with their printed out CVs, on the off-chance that one of us would be available.
I have also witnessed a number of cases of parents calling on behalf of their children. What they are hoping to achieve by this I am not yet sure, but they call asking for interviews or more information for their sons and daughters.
We have, of course, come across candidates lying about their qualifications to get through the pre-screening criteria. We are not sure if this is particularly on the rise moment, but it remains a very bad idea. Qualifications can easily be checked out and the lies will eventually come to light, with potentially much more serious consequences further down the line.
On the subject of lying, we had one candidate who completely invented the last company she worked for and the work it did, right down to the address and name of the employer. Simply Googling the unfamiliar name provided us with the evidence we needed not to provide her with an interview.
We have also had candidates ringing people within their targeted organisation to get company information by posing as someone they are not. A particularly disgruntled candidate called us up pretending to be a freelance journalist in order to ascertain what our selection and interview processes were.
Social media is undoubtedly being used more and more by employers screening candidates, but the reverse is also true. These two particular examples have stayed in my mind.
An amusing case of a candidate who found and read his interviewer's page on Facebook. He then proceeded to pretend in the interview he had the same interests as her, namely cheerleading and baking. I am not saying this happy coincidence is impossible, but in the context it was not only funny, but deceptive and very obvious.
The second case was of a Twitter follower who turned up to meet an interviewer after he tweeted where he was. Along the same line, we have witnessed a candidate bring an interviewer flowers, and not content with this gesture, proceeded to ask her out after the interview.
James Callander, is managing director of recruitment consultancy FreshMinds Talent
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