Lying in your resume..?
 

I've been unemployed for about 4 months and let face it, its the absolute worst time to find a job. I'm a university student w/ about 2-3 years experience in the retail industry and believe me... this is not opening doors. I've applied for 100s of jobs and i got 2 interviews and thats it. I apply in person and online.

My question is... can you lie in your resume? I don't mean drastically... just add another job in my work experience for a period of 6months or a little more? Is this something a employer/HR can really look into? what if the place no longer exists (bankruptsy)?

what kind of job r u looking for?

I dun think it's a good idea to lie on ur resume. If u even comtemplate doing it, it says alot about ur integrity. But on the other hand, I see so many ppl lie & get the position.

i lie in my resume all the time

according to my resume, i've worked in sales for almost 2 years, when i haven't even worked for more than 10 weeks in my life

never ever lie.

your number 1 thing you need to do is come up with a good solid answer telling them why yo uhave been unemployed. (whether you have been fired / laid off)
go read some library books. i borrowed this book and it tells u how to come up with a decent answer during interview. it's great.

I always used to lie in my resume, until i got a corporate desk job. Where they did a background check...

oh wait, i still lied.

dude i have this omega prof resume and i still can't get a job. I was basically fired cause of a conflict of personality w/ the store manager... shes a ... what word em i looking for? CUNT.

I can't see them doing a background check for like rogers wireless or a clothing store... or would they?

Try an job agency if your are that desperate got my last current position through an job agency and yes you do get raped by them @ first.............

was it lulu metro?

no but thanks for coming out. lol jk

picture this scenario:

You lie in your resume. Then you got lucky, got a job which you really liked and started to move up the ranks in the company, earning more money, doing less work until you are almost to upper management level.

Then comes a jealous co-worker who didn't like your success in the company, snooped around and somehow managed to get a copy of your resume from human resources. Looked around, poke and checked around till they found proof and confirmed you lied on your interview and resume. They proceed to bring it up with human resources or your superior, pointing out and blowing up the lie to epic proportions and flashed the message : "immediate dismissal".


It happens, that's why in alot of job applications it is in fine print stating all information fill out on the application should be the truthful. It serves multiple purposes when they put on that lil sniplet on the application.

good point, but in the end i wouldnt be the guy w/ 2 black eyes

being a recruitment consultant in the past, I can tell you it is QUITE difficult to catch a
lie in a resume, especially causal job like retail, office job, warehouse.

Unless the HR staff really has no life and he/she has subscribed those resume database,
or the lie is so obvious, otherwise, we tend to believe what people say on the resume.

I wouldn't lie if I don't have the skill to back me up, which means you won't get into
trouble when you only have 2-3yrs exp, but saying you have 3-4 yrs of exp...of course
lying about something you have zero experience, it's very risk and you could get into
unnecessary lawsuit.

What about those companies that do nothing but look at your background and references? I know Telus uses a company for reference checks. Is that all they do?

If that's the case. I'm an effing doctor! LOL

i guess in terms of being screwed or not, it depends on the lie. Like if you lie and say ur a pro at photoshop and u get hired, u better become a pro at photoshop within a few days or be prepared to get layed off.

On the other hand, if you lie about something like experience, though it may be harder to disprove, it might show in your work. Like if yo usay you're an experienced manager, and then in your new job, suck at directing and managing, you might get fired for not bringin in enough sales etc.

maybe instead of lying, an idea is to work on your resume, cover letter and interview skills and phrase things in ways that sell yourself the best. Also no matter how much you lie, in this recession there's prolly always gonna be ppl looking for work who have more experience than u, so just gotta tough it out!

you are right, if u're a receptionist, retail, warehouse job, basically a job that's <40K... they might just call to confirm your proof of employment.
now if u're looking for jobs 40k+ with a decent sales, technical, decent company, they might most likely check.

now here is the part where it becomes tricky, if ur old boss likes you and say great things about you that's great, now if u're lying and old HR sucks and he loves to talk, he'll call u out on ur position and ur resume stating that, NOPE, he was nota supervisor.. etc...

personally I keep the lying to a minimum , but I have a buddy who has gotten multiple jobs an false pretenses.

same here. i know a guy that works as an engineer and totally lied on his resume stating all sorts of experience (he was only a new grad w/ 1 coop job). it's opened doors for some pretty nice jobs when he lied.

personally i wouldnt suggest it. you could find yourself in a position of having trouble answering certain questions should they arise.

Come on, it's not that bad to lie:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RRLWrp356g[/youtube]

I guess it all depends on what you are lying about. Lying about the number of years you worked in the industry does very little to get you ahead. Because you can be working for a certain company for 5 years doing a mediocre job, you are still just a mediocre worker. Whereas another individual could be doing the same job for 2 years brilliantly, will end up being more valuable than you are.

Writing a resume isn't hard, you just have to know how to present it. Instead of just putting down where you worked, put down what you are capable of when you worked for past companies. For example:

Instead of:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Experience

Sport Chek 01/02/09 to present Burnaby, BC
Sales Clerk

Best Buy 01/10/08 to 12/29/08 Burnaby, BC
Sales Associate
------------------------------------------------------------------

Change it to:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Experience

Sport Chek 01/02/09 to present Burnaby, BC
Sales Clerk- Assisted customers professionally with their purchases.
Responsible for keeping the store and displays neat. Provided training
for new employees and seasonal employees. Current top sales clerk
for my store.

Best Buy 01/10/08 to 12/29/08 Burnaby, BC
Sales Associate- Educated myself in various products in my department.
Responsible for merchandising and maintaining the shelves stock levels.
Awarded Top Sales Associate before leaving the company.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Now obviously I made all that crap up. The important thing is not to lie. Because if you have to lie, then you are not capable of doing what you said you can do. If you talk the talk, you are expected to walk the walk. There are probably a handful of skills you have that you either don't know about or don't know how to put down in words effectively. Putting down "reliable, honest worker" doesn't cut it. Why? Because that's what 90% of all applicants put on their resumes. Instead of putting down reliable, explain why/how you are reliable. For example:

Instead of:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Skills

Reliable, honest worker
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Write:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Reliable and Honest- I was entrusted with the store keys at Sport Chek
and am responsible for locking up the store at the end of the day. I am
also responsible for doing the cash count at the end of the day and put
the money into the store safe.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Lastly, for references, DO NOT put "References available upon request." Go get off your ass and find up to date references with contact numbers. This may not seem like it's very important, but it is. Listing references will give you an edge over other applicants who don't.

And remember, a quality resume only gets you the interview... winning in the interview gets you the job.

IF you decide to lie, you'd want to make sure your references are willing to do so for you as well. theres absolutely no point in saying you worked at XXX for 3 years when your reference tells them you only worked there for 6 months.

as mentioned above, having a great interview is what will get you hired

not really lie on your resume...but you can bend the truth a bit.
Obviously, dont make up an employer lol

But if you've had a little experience at something, and you know you can get away with it, do it.

For example, I was a corporate trainer before. And at my last job I also did some training. No problems with fabricating a lil bit. But at the same time I'm not going to list the same title as before as one can easily find out that that title belongs to someone else. Instead, you could say you assisted with creating and publishing the training manual or something like that. (I can get away with it as I have done this before, and can do it - so basically I'd be lying to further support a skill/ability I actually have)

I would never say I'm a competent n established program writer and apply to MS when I've never used a computer before. That'd just get me thrown outta the office once I ask where to put the paper to type.

We hire people who lie about their experience all the time. They lie and say they have 10+ years experience but once working it's clear that maybe they have a year or two so they get found out and dealt with pretty damm quick. If you lied about something that wasn't totally relevant to your new job especially about a job in a different field it would be pretty hard to get found out.

remember that episode of friends when joey gets an audition for a FRENCH play? only he didn't know how to speak a word of it but on his resume said he did? then as phoebe was crossing off the things on his fake resume, the only thing he could do was drink 2L of milk within 15 seconds?

if you want to lie, lie. some employers might check and some might not. either or, i'd hate to be someone who loses that possible chance of landing that job to you if you were to mess with your resume.

I've been on the other side of it. I've had to call references that someone gave and ask about their job position. Turns out that they not only did NOT do the job they listed on their resume but were let go during the probation period and ended up not having anywhere NEAR the length of employment at the job which pretty much was their crown jewel of experience qualifying them for the position they were applying for.

I wouldn't just listen to one side of the story...the applicant might have made
enemies at work and he doesn't know anything about it.

I mean if I were the applicant and I wouldn't dumb enough to put the contact
number of the person who fired me. I also have called references and the
boss/manager couldn't remember the applicant who worked there, it happens all
the time, but he could show me the name card, annual dinner pictures, bank
statement etc.

of course, you could see how he performs in the interview to determine whether
he really lying or not.