Tell The Truth: Resume Fibs Are Epic Fails

In the 1997 film “Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion,” Lisa Kudrow (left) and Mia Sorvino play friends whose career lies don’t fly.

“Oh, OK, I invented Post-Its,” Michele, the Lisa Kudrow character blurts out in the 1997 movie, “Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion.”

She gets found out, of course, even if she slides through an explanation involving viscosity. But most people get caught with resume and experience enhancements. Recently, U.S. State Department official Mina Chang was discovered to have lied on her resume, and with some big lies, including a fake Time magazine cover. She has resigned.

According to the Dallas Observer, “NBC News posted a triple-bylined investigative piece outlining how Chang worked her way into a job as deputy assistant secretary of state … didn't have a degree from Harvard Business School, despite claiming to be an alumna in her official State Department biography. She also never spoke at the 2016 Democratic or Republican national conventions despite claiming to have done so, nor did she appear on the cover of Time, despite answering questions about having made such an appearance during a 2017 interview.”

Read more in Take The Lead on creating a culture of honesty at work

Dallas Observer also reported that Chang said in a 2017 interview that she was a pop star. “Chang released a Christmas album in 2009 on Fischer Records. Chang's K-pop album from the same year appears to have been self-released. While it appears that Chang may have been in Haiti at some point after the earthquake, a separate claim, made by Chang in 2014, about building schools in Haiti, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Kenya has no evidence to back it up, according to NBC.”

These are more than just fudging grad point averages and claiming you have more Adobe Suite skills than you do. But lying about career experiences is apparently very common.

“These are more than just fudging grad point averages and claiming you have more Adobe Suite skills than you do. But lying about career experiences is apparently very common. #ResumeTips”

According to HR Dive, “Of the 22% of job applicants who understand applicant tracking systems  88% have optimized their resumes to better their chances of getting a job, according to a new study by TribePad of more than 1,000 U.K.- based workers and job seekers.”

Read more in Take The Lead on uncovering lies at work

HR Dive reports, “Candidates who doctor their resumes may make worse the problem of poor candidate selection. And they may inadvertently doom their chances by lying; about half of hiring managers said a resume lie would cost a candidate a shot at a job, according to a survey from TopResume.”

Perhaps not everyone would claim an outrageous lie like inventing Post-Its or being on the cover of Time magazine, but many different, less glaring lies are commonplace.  

“Perhaps not everyone would claim an outrageous lie like inventing Post-Its or being on the cover of @Time magazine, but many different, less glaring lies are commonplace. #Resume #Lies”

According to the Top Resume survey reported in HR Dive, “Lying is fairly common from job seekers; 78% of respondents said they had seen a resume lie, with many citing lies about academic degrees, criminal history, certifications and licenses, work experience, and technical skills and proficiencies. Hiring pros may not have much room to judge, however. HR professionals were 10% more likely to admit to lying on a resume or during an interview than workers in other areas, a Comparably study found.”

The data doesn’t lie, even if job seekers do. CNBC reports, “A 2017 survey from Careerbuilder found that 75 percent of hiring managers have spotted a lie on a resume at some point in their careers. What’s even more shocking is how outrageous some of those lies were. According to the report, here are the notable ones cited by hiring managers:

• “Applicant said he worked at Microsoft, but then had no idea who Bill Gates was.”

• “Applicant falsely claimed to have a PMI credential when applying for a job at Project Management Institute (PMI), the organization that grants that credential.”

• “Applicant claimed to be an anti-terrorist spy for the CIA at the same time period he was in elementary school.”

• “Applicant said he studied under Nietzsche.”

“The data doesn’t lie, even if job seekers do. @CareerBuilder reports that 75% of hiring managers have noticed lies on resumes. #CareerAdvice”

Read more in Take The Lead on why lies ruin careers

It seems almost incomprehensible that in the age when pretty much everything can be checked with a simple Google search, that someone would fabricate a professional association. Someone once told me he was also an alum of my alma mater and when I asked what year, he said he was one semester short of graduating.

“It seems almost incomprehensible that when everything can be checked with a simple Google search someone would fabricate a professional association. #ResumeTips #NoMoreLies”

I told him that the university was on the quarter system. He pushed back and then said he has taken continuing education classes there for a six-week period.

The good news is while many people do admit to puffing up their experience, CNBC reports that in a survey, “GoBankingRates asked 1,003 people whether they’ve ever lied on their resumes and why. The vast majority, 85%, said they’d never done so, while 9% said they’d been tempted but never went through with it. A small slice, 5%, of overall participants admitted to lying on their application materials, but of that bunch over half were repeat offenders.”

“The good news is while many people do admit to puffing up their experience, a survey by @GOBankingRates found that only 5% of participants confessed to lying on job applications. #CareerAdvice ”

The survey showed Millennials were more likely to fib than other age groups. Here is what CNBC reports they lied about: “Work experience (38%) and dates of employment (31%) were the most common answers. Of note, more men than women said they’d lied about their job history (46% vs. 31%), and more women than men admitted to lying about their dates of employment (41% vs. 19%).”

Bottom line is to be honest. Because a quick background check or phone call to your former employer will heed the truth. Trusting that you will get passed up the hiring ladder by sailing through AI screenings is also not a sure thing.

“Bottom line is to be #honest. Because a quick background check or phone call to your former employer will heed the truth. #Honesty #ResumeTips”

“Listing dozens of tech skills might get you past the automated keyword-scanning systems that many HR departments use to source CVs and résumés (unless you pack too many in, in which case those systems will reject your materials as egregiously overstuffed), but flesh-and-blood recruiters and hiring managers will actually quiz you about your abilities—if they don’t subject you to a battery of tests,” Nick Kolakowski writes in Insights. “Don’t put down any skill unless you’re willing to prove yourself in front of a keyboard, even if you think it’s a good way to get your foot in the door.”

And if you get caught in a lie, for sure fess up. You can say you were confused or mistaken, but do not keep pushing back. In follow-up questions, you will just be exposed as an irreverent fibber. A Post-Its inventor.

“And if you get caught in a #lie, for sure fess up. You can say you were confused or mistaken, but do not keep pushing back. #InterviewTips ”

And never, ever say you were on the cover of TIME, unless of course, you were.