Candidates are often more honest in their LinkedIn profiles than in the resumes they send employers.

At least that’s what LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman said at the Social Recruiting Summit held recently at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

His reasoning: Resumes are read only by a few people in a company, who know nothing about the candidate. On the other hand, candidates might have hundreds of LinkedIn connections, and in theory, know or have worked with all of them.

Reid’s point: It’s pretty hard to lie publicly in front of current or former colleagues.

Of course, LinkedIn profiles aren’t really replacements for resumes — most users don’t put the same detail into a profile, and there aren’t many versions tailored to different types of positions.

But some experts recommend finding a candidate’s profile to quickly make sure it matches the info the candidate sent to you.

Many employees keep their resumes online at all times — some might even have forgotten to take it down after you hired them.

But if someone’s worked at your company for several years and is just putting it out there now, that might be some cause for alarm.

Basically, you have four options. You can:

• ask the employee what’s going on
• tell his or her manager
• try to keep the employee on your side without tell him or her why they’re getting new attention, or
• do nothing.

Have you ever been in this situation? How did you handle it? If it’s never come up, how would you handle it if it did?

Let us know by leaving a comment below.