ReliableResumes.Com

It is tempting to believe that everyone inflates their resumes by exaggerating past work experience or credentials.  It is true that many people do misstate important facts on their professional resumes.  They can sometimes rationalize such indiscretions because in their minds life experience is equal or better than a degree.  Others simply do not care, adopting an end justifies the means or “catch me if you can” attitude.  Many employers are busy, short-staffed places, and surely will never know the difference. 

In these recessionary times, despite busy-ness and being short-staffed, organizations are checking references more thoroughly than ever.  My heartfelt message to anyone thinking of fudging key information on their resume is DON’T. 

Exactly what untruths are people tempted to claim on their resume?  The U.S. Department of Labor tracks these things, and when you look at the data it breaks according to those who were not hired as well as those who were hired but ultimately terminated due to resume fraud. 

Reasons why those who were not hired because of false claims fell into six categories:

• Education (claim of high school diploma, college degree(s) not earned, schools not attended). 
• Listing false employers (claims of working for large companies, prestigious firms, etc.). 
• Identified jobs that didn’t exist (gave themselves a more interesting job, or job sounding closely aligned with one they want).
• Listing incorrect job titles (better, more impressive titles).
• Misrepresenting why they left a former employer (voluntary versus involuntary).
• Listing dates of employment that were off by more than three months (memory fades and honest errors in accuracy of dates are generally accepted within a three month range; three months and beyond is seen as tracking toward deception).

We still live in an employment-at-will environment, and employers have always reserved the right to terminate employees who lied on their resume.  Sometimes resume “indiscretions” do not surface for months or years after being hired. 

Reasons why those who were hired and ultimately terminated due to something on their resume also fell into six categories:

• Falsifying company records (includes creating false letter of recommendation).
• Failure to list previous employer (candidate simply skips over mention of an employer; this is OK unless there is something about the experience with or reason for leaving employer that hiring organization had right to know about).
• Failure to admit cheating on time reporting or financial documents (includes whether someone was only disciplined versus terminated)
• Failure to reveal a prior felony conviction (key word is conviction; not required that mention be made of accusations for which someone was found not guilty).
• Lying about education and experience.
• Fabricating a college degree (includes instances where employee had degree but claimed one or more additional degrees).

Resume fraud is serious and so not worth it.  The odds of being caught are great; especially for those in executive-level positions.  Once caught, the ripple effects of lying on a resume can continue for years.

Tags: resume writing, resumes

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 1:02 pm and is filed under resumes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.