It may be time for a national movie night in America, and that movie should be Pinocchio. People in attendance could marvel at the big nose on the silver screen, and the hundreds just like it all around them.

We’re living in this fairy tale in 2017. 85 percent of employers have uncovered a lie or misrepresentation on a candidate’s resume or job application during the screening process in the past year, according to the HireRight 2017 Employment Screening Benchmark Report. That figure is particularly staggering if you believe the supposition that “for every rat you see, there are 50 you don’t.”

Five years ago, just 66 percent of employers uncovered applicant dishonesty. The dramatic increase demands a more thorough screening process, including a more rigorous employment background check. To catch untruthful applicants, it helps to know some of the most common areas of deceit in applications, and what details should arouse suspicion:

1. Gaps in employment

A variety of nefarious websites exist to answer the questions job applicants ask Google. Among the most common is “How do I explain resume gaps?” Several of these sites advise applicants to claim they were volunteering during this time, since it can be much harder to verify. Claiming self-employment and individual projects are also ways in which applicants cover gaps in employment, or positions from which they were fired.

2. Skill sets

An increasing number of positions—even non-technical positions—require specific technical and software skill sets. Online training is readily available, and that should be the approach applicants take to gain needed software and hardware proficiencies. Many lie, however, listing skills they don’t have. If you need a candidate with software proficiency for a position, consider asking a question in the application that would distinguish candidates who really know the software from those who don’t.

3. Phony references

Catching fake references is essential, because these are commonly used to cover employment gaps when an applicant had been fired, or wasn’t working at all. Often, applicants provide a fictitious name and a phone number of a conspiring friend, who answers and provides a phony reference. Or the friend says that the company only provides references by mail, in which case the candidate sends a phony reference letter.

Another giveaway to a phony reference is an incorrect phone number—this isn’t a typo in most cases, but a deliberate attempt to deceive. Avoid deception by calling the former employers’ main line and getting directed to the candidate’s supervisor. If that person has left the company, use LinkedIn to find his or her current employer.

4. Academic degrees, GPA, and major

There are monthly news headlines about executives who have risen to prominent positions, who lied about their academic qualifications along the way. Many candidates lie about the degrees they hold, institutions they attended, GPAs they achieved, and even their majors and minors on their resumes. This information is all verifiable by contacting the institutions, though it may require patience in some cases to receive transcripts.

5. Inaccurate titles, accomplishments, and responsibilities

This is a murky area with a wide grey space between fact and fiction. A common scenario is that a job applicant creates a title that represents the body of work she was responsible for in a previous position, but it was not her actual job title. It may be a good way to brand herself for a new position, and the former supervisor may go along with it, which is why titles on a resume should be verified with human resources. Often, candidates claim to have received promotions when they haven’t, so ask human resources about all of the titles a candidate held during the employment timeframe.

Job responsibilities and accomplishments are not as easy to verify through human resources. If you are concerned that an applicant embellished these, ask targeted questions during the interview. Better yet, have the person who performs the same functions at your company conduct a short interview with the candidate.

If the current trend continues, it won’t be long before short-nosed candidates may feel they need to artificially inflate their applications in order to contend with long-nosed rivals. This could devolve into a situation analogous to the doping scandal in the Lance Armstrong era of cycling, or the steroid era of baseball, when athletes felt they had to cheat to compete. Let’s avoid that morass by being vigilant in the candidate screening process.