For the past few days, I’ve been out of the political news-blogosphere loop, so I don’t know what’s going on. Let’s do something different: CONFESS!
I suspect that most people, at one time or another, have lied on their resumes. I’ll tell you about one of my resume lies.
When I first arrived in the nation’s capital back in 1998, I was using a resume with a big fat whopper on it. At that point I wasn’t using a computer regularly and didn’t own one. I’d prepared papers in some prehistoric form of MS Word while in school, but that was about it. For reasons I still can’t understand, I decided to exaggerate my computer experience. “Three years of word processing experience” would have been appropriate, but I wanted to puff myself up: Programmer.
Yes, I wrote that I was a computer programmer! I had no idea what programming was, what the latest languages were…it just sounded cool. For a while, nobody asked about my programming skills. When I landed in DC, I visited a few temporary employment agencies. A job placement person at one of the agencies noticed that I’d worked with the agency before.
“Oh, you’ve done programming for us before? What company?”
My first instinct was to lie. She didn’t ask what languages I knew. All she asked was where I did this programming. OK. I can lie my way out of this.
“Uh…that’s sort of a…typo.” I decided to tell a different lie.
She looked at me as though I were the biggest idiot she’d ever seen, frowned and said, “That’s a big typo.”
If I were a bit paler, the embarrassment would have shown. Face burning, feeling like the idiot I was, I croaked, “Yeah.”
She didn’t say anything else about it. I didn’t get a call from the agency, but that was a small price to pay. As soon as I was able, I removed the fiction from the resume.
(What were the chances that I’d lie about work I’d done for an employment agency, and years later I’d be standing in a branch of the same agency and getting called out? I have an unconventional employment history. Maybe I’ll blog about it one day.)
Your turn! Use your real name or an alias if you must. Tell us about your resume fiction.
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Uh-oh! I am deep into a job search, putting out maybe ten resumes a week….my resume is truthful, but in reading the article that says nearly fifty percent of resumes are padded or false, I wonder if a jaded HR person is not believing me?
Carmen
I have an interesting work and travel history, and sometimes people think I’m lying, but I haven’t. Luckily, someone appreciated (and believed) what I’ve done and hired me for a cool job.
I’ve never lied. Really.
Oh, maybe I once said I had managed a marine petroleum depot when all I really did was pump gas into boats. And then there was my experience as a warehouse logistics technician when I had a 3 day history of unloading boxcars by hand. Oh, and I also listed experience in the methane production field because I had a job shoveling hog manure.
But I never, ever lied. That would be wrong.
I never padded my resume. It’s pretty good as it is.
But I did tell someone in a casual conversation (someone that I was hoping to work for one day) that I made Dean’s List for 3 years — when in reality I was on the Dean’s List for 2 years.
What struck me immediately after the conversation was that it was such a small and unnecessary lie. As if that extra year was going to dramatically change his opinion of me? What was I thinking?
So, in a way, I have to doff my hat to the whopper lie of La Shawn. If you’re going to “pad”, pad big (but, you know, do your homework).
Interesting confession time. This has bothered me for years. I’ve never lied on my resume, but I have lied about my education when casually asked about my background. You see, I have no degree, only one year of college. However, I had a job for years (till my recent retirement) which normally required an advanced degree in a specialized field (regulatory affairs). The people who hired me and promoted me over the years knew I had no degree, but other people in my field assumed I had a degree because they all did. One time a university we were working with asked me if I’d be interested in teaching a class as an adjunct professor. I almost fainted and feigned an excuse about being too busy. A few other times I was asked to give presentations at national meetings sponsored by a trade association, and let me tell you I worried more about what to state on my bio than my presentation. I ended up simply stating my work experience and ignored the education part. I was a very successful person who never had the guts to own up to her lack of education in public. I wonder what kind of phobia that is classified as.
Javascript. Though I could get away with putting it back in now that I actually have worked with it, but at the time I had it in my resume, all I had was a beginner’s book about it.
Hi La Shawn! My little “distortion of the facts” on my resume was somewhat similar to yours.
I have actually been a Web/Software Developer for about 4 years and have moderate experience with about 4 programming languages. My resume, however, tells quite a different story. It declares that I am a Software Engineer with 6 – 7 years of hands-on experience with more than 11 different programming languages!
When I realized about 7 months ago that it was time for me to leave the company I was working for, I happily and confidently sent my resume to several job recruiters who were able to find job matches for me at Fortune 500 companies within minutes! Alas, when I actually went on the interviews, I was brutally rebuffed by hiring managers, senior programmers, and the like. It was so embarrassing having questions thrown at me like, “Give two examples of times that you created objects for the thread class.” and responding with “Thread? I don’t need no stinkin’ threads!” Eventually, I modified my resume to reflect the, um, truth of what my skill-set actually entails. The result was a little less pay than I was asking for originally, but I ended up with a job at a place that I’m happy with.
Keep ‘em coming, everyone. I’d like to hear from recruiters, too.
Tami – Thanks for commenting! And confessing. Cleaning up the resume is a good thing. The truth is truly liberating, isn’t it?
Nope. Never. I actually had one interviewer accuse me of lying on my resume. I had no idea at the time of the interview, but the recruiter called me back and also accused me of lying. The feedback from the interviewer was that “I could not possibly have been doing all the things I said I was and be making so little money”.
Gee, thanks. Both to them and my previous employer.
La Shawn:
I am reminded of a surgeon who was recruited to our Hospital elsewhere. The Hospital payed the recruiting firm a $20, 000 commission.
Ne had been at his former job 8 months. This should have raised a red flag. Recommendations were made, etc..
But this man was a disaster – 7 malpractice suits in one year, complains of physical abuse to several nurses, etc..
a week after this man arrived, a colleague made a few phone calls and found out everything about this doctor. Official sources were afraid of this man – he was Black.
After a year, he left our Hospital. Only one other Hospital in town gave him privileges – the “grapevine” took care of this.
I have no doubt that someone lied to the recruiters, and the recruiters didn’t do their homework as well.
I went to a trade school and took electronics & TV video production, way back when. Since I had been a musician working in the joints all my life, I didn’t know much about getting a job and those placement people tell you to puff it up on the resume, so I did. I said I had studied something called “sync pulse generators” and sent it off to my hometown TV station and immediately got a call from their chief engineer who was fascinated that this young gal knew something about sync pulse generators. Actually, I had just read about them in our text, over and over trying to understand it. When I got back to town I never went for the interview. Instead I went back to college and then got a law degree.
Other than that time, I never lied. In fact, I don’t puff much at all, and never really got a great job either.
I haven’t lied on my resume, but I do have skillsets listed that I haven’t used in years and have probably totally forgotten. They’re on there mostly to show that I’ve been in the business a long time, and that I can pick up new skills. Is that lying?
In the past, I’ve lied about the software packages that I’ve used.
I’ve also been to agencies who have creatively “shaped” my resume in ways that I wasn’t comfortable with so that they could sell me to a client.
Haven’t lied on a resume, though I think it is fair to be a language artist
and put yourself forward positively. My first ‘grown up’ job was in the Coast Guard-the switch there is that recruiters are the ones who lie-or at least did back in 1977 when I went in. The Guard did me a lot of good.
This is interesting, about resumes-one restaurant where I worked, the job applications for those seeking work were simply tacked to a pin board in the kitchen-my boss was an idiot. They made for interesting reading, though.
Usually lying is wrong but I would say its not always wrong.
30 years ago or so I lied on an application where it asked if you had ever been arrested, and I was hired. Later on the employer found out asked me why I had lied.
I asked him, “Would you have hired me if I told the truth”
His response: “No, I wouldnt have”
My response: ” Thats why I lied ”
He looked at how I had been doing as far as my performance and decided to keep me.
One time I actually put the whole truth on an application and the employer came out looking like he had seen a ghost. If you used drugs for 14 years like I did, then complete honesty on an application is not an option, unless you dont want to work.
Nowadays, I workd for myself so its not a problem. But it was a problem when I tried to work for others.
So I confess I lied. I’d do it again in order to work if I had to.
These days, they cannot ask you if you have been arrested, only if you have been convicted.
My declared major is Politics. However, I am pursuing a double in History and Politics…but I still haven’t officially filled out the paperwork for the double major. I just “haven’t gotten around to it.” Still, I put that I am a double major on my resume.
Does anyone know how many employers ask for college transcript copies? I’ve never been asked for mine, so all my employers have always just assumed that I am actually a student. Hmmm. Makes me want to leave academia. Man, I wish I had the guts to do something like that.
I am 44 years old and for the first time in my life, I am doing the resume / job search thing. I was in the Air Force for 21 years as an aircraft mechanic. I was fortunate enough to be hired over the phone without a resume for my first civilian job (I got a word of mouth recommendation and the phone call followed). I am a computer network administrator for my civilian career. This resume stuff is a bit scary because I fear not having a resume that will get me the job, but I also fear getting to the interview and not being able to do what I said I could do. The honesty part has won out in that tug-of-war thankfully. However, I am also learning how tough it is out there and what drives a person to do it. It has crossed my mind many times. I am content to let God do the driving and trust that being honest is the best way to go.
Reading these comments have surprised me, as I feel I am too honest for my own good. I had a 30 year career as an exec. sec/assistant & I’ve always been terrified to put something down that was not true. And I can say I’ve been the victim of dishonest applicants – example: an applicant puts down on resume that they have software skills that they don’t possess. But their BS is good, so they get hired. Later the employer finds out of course, so what do they do? Test all applicants, regardless of their experience. I was always bitter that almost every job I had I had to be tested on typing, word processing, etc., because a few lie to mess it up for the rest of us.
I too have been accused of lying on my resume when I had not. I had a 4-5 month gap on my resume during which time I actually took time off to relax. An agency I was working with grilled me because they thought I was trying to hide a job gone bad during this time. Another couldn’t figure out how I could live without a regular salary, even for such a short period of time (it’s called living within one’s means & having money saved).
I love your work La Shawn – keep it up.
I interview 2-3 people a week for highly technical positions in financial services.
We have had people who said they went to school xyz, when in fact, they did not. We still bring them in and put them in front of staff who went to xyz in the same department. This serves to let the applicant know we are on to them and helps boost morale among staff that we are filtering the bozos.
The q & a goes something like this.
The Liar, who recently graduated from xyz, is ushered into a room with some hard-core programmers, one of whom is a Senior at school xyz.
Staff: “So, tell us about your time at xyz.”
Liar: “Well, I really enjoyed my time at XYZ studying computers.”
Staff: “So what was it like at the computer science department – is Dr Highwater still there?”
Liar: “Well, I did not take Dr Highwater….”
Staff: “What about Dr Drunk?” [Note: No Dr Drunk at XZY]
Liar: “Dr Drunk was a lot of fun”
(At this point Liar is sweating.)
Staff: “What courses did you take your senior year at xyz?”
Liar: “Ugh, I took Programming classes and electronics classes.”
Staff: “Which class was your favorite?”
Liar: “Ugh, the programming class.”
Staff:”And what language did you use in that class.”
Liar: “ugh, Basic.”
At this point all the programmers start laughing.
Hiring Manager: “We checked with school xyz, and they have no record of you ever attending – but you have it on your resume. Can you explain this?”
Liar: “I almost went there.”
Programmer: “If you lied on your resume and lied to us, why should we continue this interview?”
Liar: “So I won’t get the job?”
Staff: Laughter.
Over 95% of applicants’ resumes we see claiming to have the skills we are looking for are full of lies or the people are ignorant of what the job really entails.
I’m self-employed, so I try not to lie to myself.
Response to comment #17.
It doesnt matter if they cant ask about arrests.
They ask about convictions, and that is the kiss of death.
I have never placed false information in my resume. During the interview process in my profession they’ll smoke you out in a heartbeat if your ‘experience’ doesn’t match you actual knowledge level.
One question I’ve pondered regarding this subject… is exclusion lying???
Let’s say you were fired at a particular job and in the future you leave that experience off your resume.
I can certainly see why someone might, especially if the person’s manager involved in the firing had it in for the employee which is the case for some. The last thing you would want is a new employer having to deal with talking to a ‘reference’ from this type of job experience.
Actually if you are at the stage of having to send out resumes, it is probably going to take you a good long while to find work even if you do have a fairly decent resume.
Getting work, much like making sales, is all about trust, and there is no way to build up any trust through a resume.
The best way to get work is to have as many people as possible who know first hand that 1) You show up to work and 2) You do a good job.
That’s it. That’s all there is to it.
It’s not that I was arrested. My “resume” ran to about 3/4 of a page. Time in two states. Not because I had any plans to be a criminal but partly from being young and dumb and partly from more idealistic convictions than good sense. Both happened in the 60’s. Later went in the military (army infantry, 11 H) and started college in South Korea. My first instructor was the Dean of Men from Seoul University. More good fortune than I deserved. Was quite impressed with Korea (once you got more than a couple of miles from an army base).
Got out and worked construction. No questions I could not answer, and I figured “my hero was a carpenter, why would I want to be anything else”. Stayed a carpenter, ironworker and whatever else would pay for quite some time except for a year of recession. Sold my car and used the GI bill to take electronics for that year. Only time in my life I good good grades in school. Looked up and noticed the recession was over and went back to work as a carpenter. Met a wonderful girl and got married. Life was good. Then we decided we wanted to have children. Wanted something more settled than construction. In the 80’s I decided that I was rehabilitated and did not mention having been arrested . . . and got the job. More than 20 years later am considered an excellent employee.
Regret that I lied (by omission), but still a lie. Have taught sunday school off and on at the local state prison for nearly the same amount of time. Have not told anyone to do the same but have been tempted to. Once a person has state time on their record it becomes a bar to any decent job. If children are depending on you, you will go a long way if necessary to provide.
I’ve never lied on my resume, but I have put a lot of work into making it sound just right. There is an art to doing it well.
On the other hand, I’ve interviewed a lot of people with impressive-sounding resumes who, as it turns out, barely know anything. In the early days, I thought maybe they were lying on the resumes. But later on, I discovered that most of the time they were simply incompetent people with credentials they never should have been given. A lot of schools graduate a lot of know-nothings, who forget everything they learned as soon the final exam is over.
I think if I was teaching Sunday School to inmates I would tell them the truth. You could tell them what you did and how you got away with it.
And I dont think you have to regret having lied by ommission either. Why would you regret it if your only motive was to provide for your wife or children?
There are times to lie on applications and times not to at least as far as the crimnal record thing is concerned.There is no point in lying when dealing with Federal or State agencies or licensing board as they will find out anyway. And those institutions (except law enforcement) are pretty much barred by law fROM discriminating against you. If they do (which I have had happen) then the courts will back you up if you can prove rehabilitation ( which I have also had happen).
BTW,the Bible doesnt not teach 100% total honesty in all situations. Your mechanical honesty can be used against you.
When Abrah went into Egypt with his beautiful wife Sarah he realized the Egyptians would kill him to get his wife if he told them the truth. So he said to his wife Sarah:
Genesis 12:13
“Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake;and my soul shall live because of thee”
Its just common sense and faith. If you were hiding Jews under the bed in Nazi Germany and the Gestapo banged on the door asking if there were any jews there, would the right response be:
“I cannot tell a lie. There are Jews hiding under the bed.”
Of course not.
“Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves”
-Matthew 10:16
I’ve never lied on a resume!
The last time I had to write one I said I was the group leader of Product Development of G.E. for seventeen years. and I was in charge of building all the laboratory computers for our military’s flight control and engine control computers of the F-18, B-1B and Stealth fighters. And I even went to Mac-Air in St. Loius and retrofitted F-18’s that were in service!
Hey wait! I really did all that!..I guess I never needed to lie. fact is always way stranger than fiction! LOL
Never lied on a resume, but I have lied to a person about my skillset because she wouldn’t understand the reality of the situation. It was a volunteer job for a hospital, and the volunteer coordinator asked me if I could use Aldus Pagemaker on a Mac. I had never heard of it before, but I figured – “It’s on a Mac — how hard could it be?” and I ended up producing their brochures and org charts for the next couple weeks (the secretaries didn’t know how to use it.) It was either that or folding the brochures by hand and licking envelopes.
Looks like people here and I have something in common. I have not lied on any resume either. I have encountered other people who have. I saw them and should have printed and kept them. They do not have the ability, but can imitate others who do.
I worked as a recruiter for a couple of years with Robert Half’s temporary and consulting divisions, so I have read and modified many resumes. I also have had a job or two that I have omitted from my own resume. I’ve tried to use 2 rules for working with resumes: 1)Tell the truth and 2)Communicate about the topics of interest to the hiring manager.
In my experience, managers hiring consulting services don’t have a lot of time and often want to know only the things that answer the question “How well can this person do the job?” I would tailor a resume to include only the things the manager wants to know about and cut everything else down to the minimum. In this case, information should be omitted because it is so much clutter, and can be a distraction. I favor bullet points, with the strongest qualifications first. I think managers should be concerned with your job qualifications now rather than with an unbroken job history. Managers should definitely be very diligent about checking references and resume information for a critical position.
I also found that there is real age discrimination going on out there, but that I love working with very experienced professionals. You don’t have to hold their hand, they’re very dependable, and they know their limitations.
Great topic! There’s lots to say about this.
Once again, another great topic. However, I’ve never lied on my resumes either.
I agree with what Ted Wegener is trying to say. But not mentioning my convictions and the fact I did time in Indiana and Michigan in reply to a direct question did constitute a lie.
Most of the inmates I have visited know the generalities but not the details of my life. I have not mentioned my employment situation because it would sponsor abuse. I do not have the power of discernment to tell if an individual is going to turn his life around, but when speaking on a general level the term “cons” owes as much to con men as to convicts.
As to proper “use” of a lie. If the individual doing it has a stake in gain, it is a lie. I was concerned for my wife and children, that is not to say that I did not get something out of it as well.
The spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law. Accepting that does not change the fact that the law was given to us as a guide for our own good.
My only regrets about these posts are that I am not fully able to express myself as well as I wish I could, and the post I lost while trying to post on Mr Wegener’s blog.
Never ever have I ever lied on my Resume. In fact, I probably understated my skill set which was probably equally as stupid.
Ok I never lied on my resume. But at my last job I was coming out of a meeting with my supervisor who had been hired one week before me, and her supervisor. This was the converstion.
Big Boss: Well we can do the whole thing in Java.
My Boss: Who will we get to do the programming?
Big Boss: You will.
My Boss: I don’t know Java.
Big Boss: You said on your resume you knew Java.
My Boss: I lied.
That was sven years ago and she is still there. So either her boss is very forgiving or it wasn’t that important.
I have never lied on a resume. I don’t see why someone would. I just figure you’d get caught one way or another, and who needs that??? Besides, it’s just plain wrong.
I’m not judging people who’ve done it, but I AM questioning why so many people today consider it okay (I’m not saying you think it’s okay, LaShawn. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t do that today). That’s the part that concerns me. I have a feeling it’s more prevalent today, and I seem to have heard of surveys where far more people than I’d have thought considered it okay to lie on a resume.
Not to mention the perception that “everyone” lies on the resume means that people who don’t are put at a disadvantage because it is assumed that theyare — i would say for me not lying is a matter of self-respect more than anything. I would not be able to live with myself if I got a job under false pretenses.
OTOH, I have never yet gotten a job off resume but, rather, more a temp to hire thing. Where people get to know ME and discover how valuable I am to them. I am terrible at selling myself by anything other than action.
I don’t lie on my resume, as I try to only put items on there I have have at least a decent knowledge of. I was reminded why I should keep an honest resume when a former coworker (who got layed off the same time I did) had an item on theirs that they weren’t very knowledgable of. They were asked about it in an interview and was busted.
My biggest problem is how depressed I get when I look at job postings. In the Computer Science field it seems like everybody wants Allan Turing, but I’m just a simple Ray Phelps.
La Shawn,
This is your geek-concience calling.
Your penance for calling yourself a programmer?
1 Rosary
2 Hail Marys
3 define and demonstrate different programmatic approaches to traversing a binary tree
I gave my resume to a younger co-worker who was a subordinate of mine to use a template for creating his own. He used a “Head Hunter” and had a new and better job within a week. I was impressed and gave the Head Hunter a call and sent him ny resume. He called me up accusing me of using my friend’s resume and told me very disgustedly that he’d seen people lie on resumes before but it was really awful that I had stolen my boss’s resume and submitted it as my own!
It’s not so much a lie, but I told an employment agency I was conversant with Word Perfect. But that had been a few years back and when they sat me down to do the test, I could barely remember how to open a document. I was furious and embarassed, and wanted to just sink through the floor.
I’ve never lied on my resume. Besides moral objections to it, I’ve always been too frightened that the people hiring me will actually check-up on my resume claims and out me if I don’t tell the truth.
I have slightly puffed up the names of positions I’ve held, though. For instance, I worked for a petition circulation company last year. My bosses liked my work, and I was one of the top producers, so they asked me to help out on turn-in nights – organizing petition sheets, supplying fellow circulators, training new recruits. I wasn’t actually promoted or anything, but for a while I termed myself a “manager” on my resume. It was sort of true, but not enough that I was comfortable with it, so I changed it to plain old “Petition Circulator” a while back.
Well, I haven’t lied on my resume…exactly. I simply prefer to think of it as like a docudrama on tv: “Inspired by real events.”
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