Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire:
Could this be you during your job search?

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George O'Leary (football coach) and Mark Brown (F.E.M.A. director during Hurricane Katrina) walk into an interview - What do they have in common? LIES!!! Lies on their resumes. They may not have been caught right away, but you do not want this to be you. It will destroy all hopes of your new career. You've worked too hard to let a seemingly little white lie turn into a sea of lies. How can you look good and only give exactly what you've accomplished throughout your career? Here are a few tips that should help you out.

George O'Leary was caught pretty early in his dishonesty. He admitted lying about his academic and athletic background. He didn't receive a master's degree from New York University in 1972. He was a student there but didn't receive a degree. He also never earned a letter playing football at New Hampshire even though it was suggested he earned three. He never even played in a game.

Mark Brown's lie didn't really come up until after Hurricane Katrina (two years after his lie). He mentioned he oversaw an emergency services division 1975-1978. He also implied inaccuracies about his title. Rather than a position as Manager as he inferred, he was more like an intern with nobody reporting to him. He was really a great intern but not a manager according to his employers.

How will you be caught?

Now how does this translate to you? Well you have two nationally recognized public figures that made a bad decision and it didn't work out. Use this knowledge to your advantage. Be sure not to lie on your resume. Accurate titles, dates and education are ones that are most lied about.

The same way you know how employees deceive you in every day business is how HR professionals or hiring managers catch the dishonest so easily. When lies are present on a resume, there are usually inconsistencies. The interview makes it even harder to pull off and lying on the application to match the resume is criminal.

Most common lies on a resume are:

• Dates - People say they still work for companies they got fired from or they change months to make dates work out. They think, "How will they find out if the company closed my branch?"
• Creating a consulting job to cover gaps in employment - People create a fake company (only in the resume) for whom they were consulting. They think, "What is the difference? I know how to do all this stuff."
• Education - People put completed degrees they didn't finish, add fake extended degrees or add college when they did not attend college at all. People think that since they've had enough experience in the work place or were only 3 credits short, they can add this education.
• Job Title - People put down their bosses title because they were "Acting VP" most of the time anyway and they did everything the boss did regularly. Why can't they get credit?
• Compensation - People lie about their compensation. A person thinks, "I deserve more anyway and the industry pays more than what I made, why can't I make more?"
• Reason for leaving - In this time of layoffs and restructuring people feel they can lie about why they left. People feel like they can say there was a layoff at the company and they were phased out.

You will get caught if you lie on a resume. Above are a few of the many lies that were tried and got caught. A resume is not a legal document, you could lie - but shouldn't, but an application is a legal document and when your resume and the application are not even close, they will figure out your dishonest trickery.

How to spice up your resume without lying:

• Dates - put years and not months on the resume
• Creating a consulting job to cover gaps in employment - change your resume layout to functional or hybrid style.
• Education - if adding it dishonestly - don't! If you didn't finish entirely - put, "Studies in Business" instead of "Bachelor of Business."
• Job Title - put the one on your business card or your official title
• Compensation - put in a range - mid to upper 50s. Then you aren't lying but not blowing negotiations either.
• Reason for leaving - don't put this on a resume at all - mention in the interview the positive circumstances surrounding your departure.

Make your resume honorable and talk about of what you are most proud

This does two things: 1) Your resume will sound good if you are mentioning your accomplishments throughout your career 2) Your interview will go great because of your energy. It is understandable to see another friend's resume and feel you have to embellish to make yours sound that good, but you do not. If you really think about it, you probably implemented something that saved the company money or made the company more profitable. Think about it, write it down - put dollars or numbers to these accomplishments and you have a good start to completing your resume.

Now you just have the cover letter to write and the interview to ace, that covers all your worries. With complete honesty you can now answer when asked your best qualitites, "I am an honest employee with integrity who can be trusted."

 

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