SanchoPanza wrote on Jan 14^th, 2008 at 9:50am:

The Employment Application An employment application is intended to allow an applicant to set out, in writing, their desire for a posiion, their qualifications for a position and their history which supports their qualifications. A handwritten application would give some information regarding grammar, penmanship, and spelling. I submit that if the information contained in the application is not confirmed in some manner, it has little or no value in determining someone's suitability for employment. Even confirmation that the applicant is the person who actually handwrote the application is required to draw any sort of conclusion about grammar, penmanship, and spelling. My score for an employment applications independant value in determining suitability is 0 unless confirmed. Error rate is based on the honesty and accuracy of the applicant.

I am not convinced the employment application is to be used in the selection process as much as it is used as a basic introduction to the candidate, and only after selection, is the information then subject to verification.  It is interesting, that when I first started in police work, the employment ap. was typtically very short.  I was astounded that when I went for a Top secret clearance, that the Personal History Questionairre, (Ibelieve that was the name) was so very detailed.  To get my "Q" clearance, it took 4-5 months, and each and every fact on that questionairre was verfied by a human being.  IN fact, a few years later, I ran into an old girlfriend who related a story to me, that she was tracked down by the investigator and asked about me.  I had never listed her as a reference, but someone else told him about her.  Also, polygraphs were not given by DOE at that time.  I suspect that the poly has replaced such a thorough background check.