The Case Against Lying on Your Resume

You may be thinking about lying on your resume.

Don’t do it. The risk and consequences far outweigh any minor short-term boost your candidacy may receive.

That seems simple enough, but it’s worth thinking about what constitutes a “lie” on your resume and how misrepresentations can unduly affect your future.

Here are just a few examples of ways people alter their resumes:

·      Fudging dates

·      Making up or inflating job titles

·      Listing job duties and responsibilities that were never part of your position

·      Education you never received or completed

·      Taking credit for professional achievements that weren’t yours, were far beyond the scope you played, or simply never happened

·      Awards you didn’t win

Here are the top reasons to make sure your resume is as honest as the day is long:

Reason #1 – It’s dishonest. That should be incentive enough. Lying on your resume demonstrates a lack of ethics and integrity. It is not that great of a leap for an employer to believe that someone who lies on their resume will repeat that behavior during the course of his or her employment.

Reason #2 – A great deal of information on your resume is subject to background checks that are routinely conducted by employers prior to making a job offer (“The Skinny on Pre-Employment Background Checks”). Any misrepresentations are likely to be discovered and an offer will never come. This is the most insidious result. You may never know that you’ve been caught in a lie and that your resume is now a poison pill.

Reason #3 – Word travels. You don’t live or work in a vacuum. If there is a major issue with your resume, its discovery will potentially move through your professional web in record time and your future will be ensnared in it. It will reflect poorly on any colleagues who gave references. Like a mark on your credit report, it will follow you until it’s corrected, and even then, damage has been done.

Reason #4 – There are even more humiliating ways to be caught in a lie on your resume than through a background check. During the course of interviewing, you may actually have to prove you know what you claim to know. This is sometimes referred to as a “Whiteboard Test,” as you will be asked to demonstrate a skill or solve a problem on the whiteboard in the interviewer’s office, on the spot. If your resume says one of your skills is “database administration,” you better be able to walk up to the whiteboard and solve a common and routine database problem. If not, not only will that specific skill be called into question, but you will invite a more in depth and skeptical review of all of your resume’s contents.

Reason #5 – It is entirely possible that misrepresentations on your resume will be discovered after the fact and you will be fired. Let’s say you do get that dream job and life is good. Then, somehow, they figure out that you were less than truthful in the interview. You will likely be fired. It will become a nice and heavy ball and chain you get to carry around to every one of your future job interviews.

Reason #6 – If a set of facts on your resume looks too good to be true, it probably is. Consider the sheer number of resumes that recruiters, hiring managers, and HR departments review. When something on your resume isn’t congruent with the rest of its contents, it stands out to the trained eye and may raise suspicion. Why risk it?

Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.