Lying/Self Promotion and CVs

[Teebs]

I read someone's account of a situation on another forum and there was a lot of disagreement about whether they took the correct course of action and also about how acceptable it is to 'bend the truth' on one's CV. I thought it was an interesting enough question to be worth a discussion here.

The scenario:
Student does a couple of weeks of work experience at a law firm. A couple of years later the legal team's leader google's the guy's name for whatever reason. He find their current employer's website and on their online CV they are described as follows: "Before joining x, y worked within the legal sector for z PLC's Corporate Litigation team." So the guy felt that this was untrue and could reflect badly on his own firm and contacted the new employers to explain the situation, resulting in disciplinary action although no firing.

I think everyone will agree that when you write a CV, you want to present everything in the best light you can. Equally, I think everyone will agree that lying on your CV is morally wrong. The question is where should that line be drawn. In the example above the guy did technically work where he said he did, but I doubt many people would think of 2 weeks as an intern when they saw what was written. It seems to me something like claiming to have been 'educated at Harvard' because you did a two week course there. Technically true, but clearly aiming to deceive.

I don't put anything on my CV that I couldn't justify if I were to sit down and discuss it in depth with someone mildly hostile to me.

So, how far do you think one can/should go with CVs, and what's the appropriate response if you see someone has been outright lying about something on their CV? What if it's only exaggeration?

[cosmicalstorm]

Do not hesitate to lie between your teeth about everything. Some exclusions; you need actual drivers license to drive a delivery car, can't lie about something like that. But lie about as much as possible if it helps you find a job!

[Stark]

Lying on a CV is grounds for instant dismissal in many industries; but the odds of anyone ever finding out (outside of public posting or massive incompetence) are quite low. The hiring system is driven by bullet points rather than competencies, so if a job requires 'legal experience' and you can kinda-sorta bend something to tick that box, many people do so in order to be considered. After all, most junior roles (especially those that don't request time periods for a criteria) are just putting those criteria in the description so they can filter out all the people they'd have to spend three months training on the basics, but an application will be insta-binned if it doesn't meet the requirements.

Any decent organisation will engage in behavioural interviewing where they'll very easily be able to determine if the content of a CV is accurate or not, and anyone who makes hiring decisions based on a CV (or references or any of the traditional trappings of hiring) is a fucking moron, because without verification they're useless.

[Starglider]

The appropriate amount of lying is probably proportional to how badly you need a job. If you're currently working in an ok job, it would be silly to take the risk. If you have been unemployed for a year and are about to lose your home, landing a job on false pretenses with a small chance of being fired later is probably still much better than the alternative.

You wouldn't get away with it in finance, because even as independent consultants, everyone we send on site gets their career and contract history checked by third-party verfication firms. The permenant IT staff at banks & funds usually get something equivalent to a government security clearance check. Which makes sense when you're dealing with systems that trade billions of pounds per day; our corporate liability insurance costs tripled when we started delivering investment banking apps. OTOH they seem happy to hire professional poker players as traders with minimal checks; it's left to the compliance teams to keep them in line...

[Stark]

The problem with a lot of checks like that (at least in Australia) is that it can be very hard to actually find out about bad things, unless someone is a) dumb enough to use a reference for a job they committed fraud at or b) was convicted of a crime. Even government security checks can miss things like 'man commits crime and gets fired' - but this sort of thing is why the recruitment process exists.

[S.L.Acker]

I personal don't think the student did anything wrong. He did what you're supposed to do with a CV, promote yourself as effectively as possible in order to get into a job opening. He also did what many people who instruct in how to write these things will tell you to, even it is in mostly a wink-wink sort of way. If the company has such lax interview standards and reference checks that they don't catch these things that's their problem.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Served as temporary assistant in Corporate Litigation division at Law Firm XYZ for 05/15/09 - 08/15/09.

There, that's how you spin things like temporary summer work experience co-ops without lying.

[S.L.Acker]

Leaving off a date isn't lying though.

[Twoyboy]

I draw the line at lying by omission. I think if you do it knowing that you are changing the implications of your CV then it's just as bad as outright lying. ie if you forget to mention how long you worked there for because it was only for 2 weeks, that's lying. Perhaps not a sackable offence but lying. As Starglider said, if you're desperate, go for it. If you do your job well, it's likely no one will ever look into it enough to find out, but I personally would have an issue with it.

I think the proper way to go about selling yourself on a CV is to highlight the bits you know are relevant to the potential employer. For example I told my new employer that my previous duties were technical consulting, market analysis, report writing, etc and then proceeded to talk about the technical consulting because that's what my new job was closer to. I never mentioned it was only 20% maybe of my last job, but I did tell him everything else I did, and I did do technical consulting. I just drew the focus to the bit that was relevant to my interviewer.

[Aharon]

Well, we don't know how he phrased it. I tried the "No Dates" approach for some really short jobs, and always was asked for the exact length of the period. That's why I soon stopped doing that - it just raises eyebrows, in my experience.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, we don't know how he phrased it. I tried the "No Dates" approach for some really short jobs, and always was asked for the exact length of the period. That's why I soon stopped doing that - it just raises eyebrows, in my experience.

Yep, and being hired for a short-term project, but getting that project done and doing it well, is hardly a bad thing; that's basically what contractors do after, all.

[Tolya]

From a moral standpoint most lies are bad. But we're not living in a laboratory. We're trying to make a living, sometimes really desperately. Would I be mad at a guy who faked his english language competences? Yep. Would I think he was an idiot for lying about something that can be checked so easily? Sure Would I blame him? Not really. I once interviewed a guy like above. The job really didn't require for any english language knowledge and he was just plain unlucky he got me to interview him. Since he put in "perfect English" I was just curious what does "perfect English" mean right now. Turns out he was barely able to get a sentence together.

Still, it's a fucking jungle out there, every man for himself.

[PainRack]

Meh. I did this before. I applied for this temporary job and simply omitted the fact that I was sacked from the last "temp" job due to punctuality issues. If they asked, sure, I would tel the truth but otherwise, I see no reason to have to explain why I lasted only 2 weeks selling internet services.

[Kanastrous]

In a well-networked industry the best reason to avoid lying on a CV or resume is that eventually it's likely to come back to haunt you. Someone reading your resume for a job sees a project listed on which -they- worked and know damn well you didn't. They see the same, and *know* someone who did, so they call them to check you out ("no, never heard of the guy"). It potentially calls your other credits into question. And at that point it's unlikely that the person reviewing your CV will bother to check which claims are true and which aren't.

I wouldn't offer a moral judgment regarding lying on a CV (per Tolya, we all have to work) but all the same, if I catch someone in a real lie on their CV and I can pick someone whom I -didn't- catch in a lie, I'll take the latter.