It is a temptation thousands succumb to in the competitive battle to secure a dream job.

Whether it involves notching a degree up a grade or turning time spent loafing into an action-packed period of personal development, company bosses say lying on curricula vitae is increasingly common among job hunters.

But now bogus candidates are to be exposed by a computer vetting system available to employers.

Potential employees boasting of non-existent qualifications or experience can now be checked out by employers - who can refer their CVs to a Candidate Verifier system.

Credentials can be checked simply by contacting a telephone call centre where a database stores lists of academic qualifications, past employment and membership of professional bodies.

The facility is being marketed to companies in the wake of a survey which showed 71% of bosses had encountered serious lying on CVs.

'Unscrupulous applicants'

Experian - the information company which did the research and is helping to launch the new facility - said nearly one in four bosses had found people lying about previous experience.

Lies about higher educational qualifications were the next most common followed by salary and then secondary qualifications such as A levels and GCSEs. The average cost of recruiting an employee was found to be £3,000.

A spokesman for Experian said there had been thousands of examples of people lying to get jobs.

These included a deputy headteacher who falsely claimed to have a degree, a doctor who was barely educated as a lab technician, and a man who stole £4m from two banks to whom he supplied false references.

"The problem of misrepresentation on CVs, and particularly in the area of educational qualifications raises very important issues for employers," said Richard Fiddis, chief operating officer at Experian.

"Most employers find the cost of checking qualifications prohibitive, yet the implication of employing unsuitable people can be huge, particularly in cases such as teachers, doctors or care workers.

"At the moment, the door of employment is open to unscrupulous job applicants and this situation makes a mockery of educational qualifications along with the ethic of hard work at school and university."

The system, provided with the help of the Higher Education Statistic Agency, relies on the consent of applicants who are provided with copies of data supplied to employers.

The cost of checking out potential employees varies but is "normally a matter of a few pounds", an Experian spokesman said.