While a little hyperbole might not cause harm (a prospective employer is unlikely to care whether your stint studying abroad lasted for three months or six), a myriad of employment law issues arise from more serious misrepresentations, and even a little white lie can come back to bite an employee.

In the Australian Public Service context, section 13 of the Public Service Act outlines the various standards that employees must uphold. For instance, the code of conduct requires staff to ''behave honestly and with integrity'' and ''act with care and diligence'' in connection with APS employment. However, it applies to APS employees, not prospective APS recruits. On its face, then, dishonest or careless statements or conduct in an application or at interview for an APS job would appear not to amount to a breach of the code.

However, unfortunately for dishonest or careless applicants, it is possible that such behaviour can be considered as a continuous course of action once the employment has begun, giving rise to a breach. For example, an applicant for an APS job who falsely says they have a doctorate relevant to the position implicitly continues to represent that ''fact'' upon beginning employment and, therefore, at least arguably, fails to ''behave honestly and with integrity'' by not disclosing or correcting the falsehood.

Moreover, interviewees who state falsehoods in support of a job application may fall foul of two important contractual principles. (Because the nature of employment is contractual, public sector employees, as with private sector employees, have an employment contract, regardless of whether it is in writing.)

First, an employment contract is a contract like any other and, therefore, the doctrine of misrepresentation applies to its formation. If a party to a contract induces the other party to enter into the contract on the basis of a misrepresentation, and that representation forms an important part of the contract and the reason why the other party entered into it, non-fulfilment of the representation can entitle the aggrieved party to terminate the contract (and sue for damages). In the APS context, to terminate the contract on the basis of that doctrine would require, because of section 29(2) of the Public Service Act, the nexus to be drawn between the misrepresentation and a breach of the code, or the employee lacking (as shown by the misrepresentation) an essential qualification for performing his or her duties.

Alternatively, the developing implied term of mutual trust and confidence, now before the High Court in Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Barker, may help employers in these kinds of situations. Last year, the Federal Court's full bench held that every Australian employment contract includes this implied term. If the High Court upholds the existence of this term (at least to the extent found by the Federal Court), it is arguable that a deception in a job interview or application may, if left uncorrected, amount to a breach of trust and confidence on the part of the employee once employment has begun.

Misrepresenting experience or qualifications in the recruitment stage may also, in some circumstances, mean that the subsequent dismissal of the employee was not ''harsh, unjust or unreasonable''. This was the case in Jacques v The McCarroll Motor Group, a Fair Work Commission decision handed down last month.

The applicant, Ty Jacques, was a trainee motor mechanic. He told his (then prospective) employer in a job interview that he had ''around six modules left to complete'' his trade qualifications and he expected to complete them in the near future. Ten months later, it emerged that Jacques had 14 modules to complete and, moreover, he had not made any progress in obtaining his qualifications since he began the job.

Commissioner Ian Cambridge identified two grounds that prevented Jacques from succeeding in his unfair dismissal application. First, his misrepresentation of the extent of his completion of his trade qualification ''clearly and understandably demolished the trust and confidence necessary to maintain the employment relationship''. Second, the lack of proximity to obtaining the qualifications led to the conclusion that he ''could not satisfy the foundation element of the employment''.

The decision does not, however, suggest that any misrepresentation, however minor, might give rise to valid grounds for a dismissal. Jacques had, some months after beginning his job, suggested he might have had nine modules left to complete, rather than the six he originally claimed. Notwithstanding this admission, the employment relationship continued, with the employer giving Jacques the ''benefit of the doubt'' at the time.

Accordingly, it might be inferred that misrepresentation on a resume or in an job interview lies on a kind of continuum of degree that, at the serious end, could justify immediate dismissal yet, at the more minor end, might not.

While exaggerating your ability to speak Spanish might be one thing (unless the job was as a translator), lying about, say, being able to be admitted to practise law in an application for an APS legal position, when one still had a number of criteria to satisfy before being able to apply for admission, would, upon discovery, put the employee at significant risk of shortly finding themselves unemployed.

As Jacques alluded to, breaches of implied contractual terms of trust and confidence aside, serious misrepresentation may mean the employee simply can no longer meet the ''inherent requirements of the position''; indeed, never could meet them. In such a situation, an employer would be on strong grounds to terminate the employment.

In the worst-case scenario, resume dishonesty could end with criminal charges, as Myer recruit Andrew Flanagan discovered recently. The retail giant hired the seemingly well-credentialed American in June, only to sack him after one day on the job. Flanagan had purported to be the former Asia-Pacific vice-president for Inditex, owners of Zara, only for Myer to discover this was a fiction. That led to Victorian police charging Flanagan with fraud, alleging he was ''using a resume and providing verbal employment history and references falsely stating he had held a number of senior executive business positions''.

While only the most serious misrepresentation is likely to end with criminal sanction, even a little stretching of the truth could lead to an investigation under the APS code of conduct or a breach of contract, or provide a defence to an unfair-dismissal application.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, honesty is almost certainly the best policy. Fudge a resume or lie in a job interview at your peril.

John Wilson is the managing legal director at Bradley Allen Love Lawyers and an accredited specialist in industrial relations and employment law. john.wilson@bradleyallenlove.com.au