Perhaps the Best Thing You Could Do for Your Career Is to Lie on Your Resume

 Perhaps the Best Thing You Could Do for Your Career Is to Lie on Your Resume

Have you ever been turned down for a job even though you KNEW you could have performed the job really well? Are you angry that, while performing the EXACT same work as someone with a college degree, you were paid thousands of dollars less for your lack of one? Have you found it difficult to advance in your career because you didn't have the "correct" job title even though your work history fit the job description exactly? Should this sum up who you are, it might be time to create a fictitious CV.

Working for many years as an executive recruiter (headhunter), I witnessed firsthand how those who followed the "rules" frequently lost out on the top positions to those who fabricated their credentials. I'm not referring to mild embellishment here, but rather overt falsehoods such claiming to have held positions or obtained degrees that were never obtained. As to the Society of Human Resource Managers, more than fifty-three percent of job seekers fabricate information on their resumes. More than 70% of college students admitted to lying in order to acquire employment. Candidates tend to lie more frequently when the income is higher. The purpose of the website www.fakeresume.com is to educate individuals about how and why they are unknowingly losing their employment to dishonest people.

Why create a fictitious CV? There are numerous justifications for creating a false resume. Maybe the title of your existing position didn't accurately reflect all of your obligations. Perhaps you experienced a period of unemployment. That doesn't look good on a résumé, as everyone knows. Have you helped an incompetent manager and helped them appear good at work? Even better, YOU performed their duties, but for whatever reason—possibly due to nepotism—you were never able to advance to their position. You resigned out of irritation, but even though YOU completed that fool's work, you are now unable to claim that title as your own! Even worse, they won't give you a positive recommendation because they are jealous or resentful that you left and that this is the first time they HAVE to complete their own work.

In the end, why not embellish your CV a little if you are confident in your ability to perform the job? Many persons that we all know have held positions for which they were unfit. Nevertheless, they continued to receive large payouts every day while others fixed their regular errors. Is this something that constitutes lying? Granted, but don't you deserve a chance at a task you know you're capable of?

And what about the integrity of your potential employer? To their current and potential employees, how transparent and truthful are they? Anyone who has read a newspaper or watched the nightly news can attest to the widespread lack of integrity in today's business environment. Few companies, in my experience, will completely disclose any negative aspects influencing the positions they post. I recruited for a startup in California, and I had a candidate who lived in New York. Both he and I received assurances that this startup was solvent and would have three years of cash flow at the current burn rate. I had a personal conversation with the Chief Financial Officer to inquire about the client's long-term viability. I wasn't going to force someone to give up their life and relocate far from friends and family in favor of something that wasn't really secure. He took the position, gave up his rent-controlled apartment in New York, and relocated to California based on the promise the CFO provided to me and my candidate. After about 12 weeks, he was abruptly fired along with half the firm. When I heard about this tragedy, I was inconsolable beyond words. Ultimately, this man sacrificed his life mostly because I persuaded him to relocate across the nation for the position. He ultimately filed a lawsuit against the business, but I never found out what transpired or heard from him again. I never again had the same perspective on corporate America after that fiasco.

It's possible that your future coworkers and employer are total idiots. Maybe they are aware that the department you will be employed by will soon be closed, or maybe the company as a whole is having financial difficulties and will soon be making a lot of layoffs. You can expect that in situations such as these, the recruiting company won't often allow things like morality and fairness to stand in their way. They must fill the position and continue operating their company. Regrettably, companies rarely provide applicants with all the information they need to make an informed judgment about whether or not the employment is desirable. A potential employer should not appear to be acting hypocritically if they require candidates to be completely honest but often withhold important information about the position.

Recently, "Hire Right" published some fascinating data illustrating the extent of resume fraud in the US. 80% of resumes are deceptive, 20% falsely claim to have a degree, 30% have changed employment dates, 40% have inflated salary claims, 30% have erroneous job descriptions, 25% list companies that have closed, and 27% provide fabricated references, according to the company's statistics.

According to certain studies, 75 percent of resumes would have some sort of falsehood, fallacy, or fabrication on it if you looked through 100 of them. Now the question is, how many applications for jobs did you make, only to have them rejected by someone who might have been less qualified than you but was hired anyhow because they lied?

In order to help job seekers of all stripes—from executives to skilled professionals—learn how and why they are losing jobs to others who are lying on their resumes and how to survive in the current, intensely competitive job market, Derek Johnson, a former executive recruiter, launched http://www.FakeResume.com. The Fake Resume Guide offers an honest, unvarnished look at every scam, ruse, and method he's seen work for those who want to cheat on their resumes and land the job.

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