TALL tales of job seekers (FUNNY)

October 6, 2008

Many job seekers enhance their résumés with items they think will improve their shot at a position, but often the items are so far-fetched they do the opposite and ruin any chance the applicant had of landing the gig. CareerBuilder.com recently surveyed hiring managers and workers and uncovered some of the more bizarre tall tales people have included on their résumés:1. Candidate claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family.

2. Applicant invented a school that did not exist.

3. Job seeker submitted a résumé with someone else’s photo inserted into the document.

4. Candidate claimed to be a member of Mensa.

5. Applicant claimed to have worked for the hiring manager before, but never had.

6. Job seeker claimed to be the CEO of a company when he was an hourly employee.

7. Candidate listed military experience dating back to before he was born.

8. Job seeker included samples of work, which were actually those of the interviewer.

9. Candidate claimed to have been a professional baseball player.

Tweaking your résumé is okay, but hiring managers responding to the CareerBuilder survey say there’s a line between bending the truth and outright deception. The survey found the following statistics:

– 38 percent of those surveyed indicated they had embellished their job responsibilities.

– 18 percent admitted to lying about their skill set.

– 12 percent indicated they had been dishonest about their start and end dates of employment.

– 10 percent confessed to lying about an academic degree.

– 7 percent said they had lied about the companies they had worked for.

– 5 percent disclosed that they had been untruthful about their job title.

Does lying work? In most cases, no. A majority of companies disqualified applicants after discovering their dishonesty. Thirty-six percent still considered the applicant, but ultimately decided not to hire him or her. Six percent of hiring managers said they overlooked the “flawed résumé” and hired the applicant anyway.

Some industries appear to be more prone to résumé fabrication. Sixty percent of résumés in the hospitality industry were found to contain lies, followed by 59 percent for transportation/utilities. Résumés in the information technology field were found to contain untruths 57 percent of the time. The industry with the fewest résumé liars? The government — 45 percent.

Share and Enjoy: