In this job market, a lot of people might feel tempted to exaggerate their experience or credentials on their resumes in order to get ahead. But, lying on your resume is a bad idea – a very bad idea. You’ll likely get caught, as hiring managers will seek to verify your claims. Even if by some miracle your lie slips past them, you’ll reveal the truth when you start to do the job and your skill set doesn’t line up the way it should. No matter how you cut it, outright lying on your resume is not recommended – but that doesn’t stop people from trying.
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Recently, Reddit asked hiring managers: What is the worst case of resume fakery you’ve ever seen? As you might imagine, the question yielded some pretty excellent responses. Since it’s been established that lying during the application process is very much ill-advised, we can enjoy these posts from a purely entertainment perspective. Here are just a few of the shiniest gems.
1. Parlez-vous francais?
“This was an interview for one of our offices about 4-5 hours away. We were having the interview by phone. Her resume said she speaks French. So do I. The interview went well up until I transitioned into French. There was a very long, uncomfortable silence before we exchanged pleasantries and hung up.” -Devilishlaughter
2. The internets confuse me…
“I had a girlfriend in college who was an idiot. I was proofreading her resume one day and I saw she had listed that she knew html. I asked her why she put this as she obviously didn’t even know what html was. She thought that being able to type urls in a browser was html.” – Brancher
3. Not that kind of Opera…
“I had a applicant say she was fluent in Opera (it was one of the skills we listed) so during the interview she’s name dropping operas left and right, it took me a while to figure out what was going on. She thought we meant Opera as in stage performance with singing. Opera is a PMS for hotels, basically what we use to check people in and out and such.” – NickRick
4. Not really fakery, but you’ve gotta hear this…
“A woman disclosed a murder she did a while back and requested a copy of the background check be mailed to her home. We found the data and put it in our report. We mailed out the report and a day later we get a call from the woman. I guess she didn’t think things through because she did not want the report mailed to the address on her Authorization form; she said she did not want her girlfriend to find out about the murder.” -FancySack
5. No, YOU have to do the job.
“We had a lady who essentially used her husband’s programming resume, substituting her name, etc. She would then IM with him all day as he told her how to do the work, and actually did most of it for her … while he was also working as a programmer at a different company.” – Efpophis
For more information, check out the full list of responses. Enjoy!
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What is the worst case of resume fakery you’ve ever seen? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter.
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