Let’s admit it. In these tough times job seekers may tempted to pad their resumes. That is, be less than truthful.
Don’t do it; stick to the facts.
Only 8 percent of applicants admit to fibbing in their resumes in a survey conducted by CareerBuilder.com However, nearly half of hiring managers surveyed say they have caught candidates lying on their resumes. Nearly six out of ten said they automatically dismissed the application.
If a dishonest resume leads to a job, it can still come back to haunt you if the truth comes out, as is likely. Overstating experience can also lead to failure by putting an applicant in a job he can’t handle.
Human resources people are better equipped and more alert than ever to spot transgressions such as grossly inflating accomplishments, positions and salary to the extent they don’t jibe with age and education/training; being inaccurate about dates to cover gaps in employment; overstating compensation.
It’s okay to put the best face on a resume so long as facts support claims. This can mean being choosy about what is included and being creative and positive in the choice of words.
I wish you success!
Ramon Greenwood, Head Career Coach
Common Sense At Work
Lying on a resume is not more unethical than stealing a loaf of bread when you are starving. Two cases (mine): I did lie when I had no experience at all in the IT field, I restarted to lie when I had 13 years of experience because you are suppose to start your own business and be sucessfull, even if you are a big zero to commercialize your software. Lying on computer’s languages that you don’t know is sometimes stupid, I’m not doing that. But I lie across my teeth regarding short experiences that I have to remove, old experiences plus the date of the degree that I’m removing as well, fortunatelly I do not look 45. And sometimes I falsify completelly the resume and remove the IT experiences and the degrees if I need to pay the rent and feel that a job in a factory for some weeks is the sole way, even for 8$/hour. Here I fabricate 15 years of experience in … factories!
Otherwise it’s welfare. And it is right now.
It’s the poison or the rope; either you lie by omission and make it ‘as if’ you were 37 or 38, either you get no interview. But even with interview they often reject the resume, probably that I’m on a blacklist because of these gaps. Funny, the most recent gap, 2 years, I wrote a big software and I even have it online but recruiters will not consider this as a good explanation for a gap because it’s not like working for an employer. So I had to change my resume again and remove this…! They didn’t even visit the website with the old resume.
And for those dear recruiters, some bad news, recently a HR former recruiter in France sued a company that was stupid enough to ask for a recruiter ‘between 30 and 35 years old’. He was 46, and unemployed for SIX YEARS. So some recruiters will have their problems too, funny…
Employers lie. They claim that they are a ‘leading company in their field’ and ask you to know perfectly 8 technologies while you will use only 2 or 3 with them. You have to know the others ‘just in case of’ and be prepare to burn your experience and forget the relevant technologies that you wished to maintain if you get caught by their promisses….
No, seriously even when I do have all the experiences that they ask for, let say 6 or 7 technologies, having it over 12 years is not enough, I should have use all of them in the last 5 years. It’s absurd, if someone claim to have used all of this recently he gets the interview and he is often lying too.
Employers or recruiters who complain about people who cheat on their resume are like people who complain that politicians always lie but who flame any candidate who states that you can’t cut tax, reduce the deficit and offer more services all at a time, that they’ll have to be realistic. Politicians lie because that’s the sole way to survive, and now it’s job seekers because employers want to believe that they will find superman without putting the price.