Kochilaris estimates that if you include minor embellishments on resumes, the rate of resume fraud among job applicants could be as high as 70 percent. Becky Parker, director of services and support at Insperity Employment Screening, says that "over half" of applicants have some kind of embellishment or false information on their resumes.

Read: Jobseekers often caught in resume lies

"It's not always something malicious, but people are desperate to get that job," she says. "They might expand on how long they worked somewhere or embellish on the duties they had. It's coming up quite a bit of the time as we're doing verifications." 

Brian Dineen, a management researcher at Purdue University who co-authored a recent study on resume fraud, found a somewhat smaller number — just under half of the people in the study reported they had engaged in some degree of resume fraud. Still, he says, that's a significant amount of fraud.

"There are people doing this, so I think it's an important thing to study and understand," he says.

A question of envy?

Dineen's study, published by the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation, looked at resume fraud and found that envy plays a role in fabrication or embellishment of information on resumes.

"Frustrated job seekers might include misinformation on their resumes simply because they envy their peers for attaining better job search outcomes," the 2012 study said.

Dineen describes the phenomenon as a "keeping up with the Joneses" type of mentality. He says the study found that resume fraud actually increases as the job market improves. According to the study, when job seekers see others getting jobs, it increases the problem of envy.

"It's almost a double-whammy," he says. "The fact that someone is not having success in a good job market actually might make them more prone to resume fraud."

Envy is certainly played up on websites that promise to help job seekers create more appealing resumes.

"I learned the hard way that the best person for the job IS NOT the person that gets hired," announces a site that boasts the subtitle: "The Machiavellian Guide to Getting a Job."

That site is basically an ad for a book, but other sites are out there as well. Some give tips for faking resumes; others promise to provide fake references. The bottom line is that job seekers have never had more resources to help them fool potential employers.

Read: Reference services help liars get hired

What should employers look for?

Kochilaris says there are certain areas that are most commonly embellished.

"Education, dates of employment, job titles, that's where you see the most embellishment," she says. "One of the big things is fancy job titles. Where a potential employee might think, 'I need to doctor that up to make it sound better,' the employer actually may have difficulty understanding what you did [at your old job]. The embellishment is literally setting you back, not pushing you forward."

Fudging dates of employment is also counter-productive, Kochailaris says, because such things can be checked. She says job seekers should be counseled that a gap in employment is nothing to hide; instead they can talk about what they did to work on their job skills during that time.

According to Parker, the hiring process should include a number of strategies to make sure an applicant's information is correct.

"It's important for companies to have a specific program in place to do background checks," she says. "Ask questions during the interview process; see if they can expand on the information they've provided."

Steps to reducing resume fraud

Kochilaris says job counselors and HR professionals can help explain to employees and job seekers why accurate information is essential to the hiring process.

"A lot of coaching has to be done," she says. "When they come to an organization like ours, we're immediately having those conversations with them. We just have to encourage them to do the right thing." She adds that in her experience, untruths do come out, often in the interview process.

The SHRM study suggested that more transparent hiring processes might reduce job seekers' envy (and thereby the motivation for resume fraud) by giving them a more realistic view of how hiring decisions are made.

"There are ways to reduce job seekers' sense of envy, or give them a better sense of what others are actually achieving," Dineen says.

Parker stressed that companies must stay focused on the importance of properly screening applicants. "Background checks are a good investment," she says. "The cost can alleviate the cost of a bad hire.

"Be sure to do your due diligence," she adds. "Follow through every time, with every candidate. Make sure the person you're bringing on board is going to be the best fit for your business."