How Resumes Lie
U.S. unemployment rate hits 14-year high and sadly, many people have to look for new jobs. But some workers turn their resumes into a work of fiction instead of a representation of fact. A CareerBuilder.com survey of hiring managers looked at the tall tales and bold lies job seekers have constructed on their résumés.
Some industries are more deceit prone, it seems. 60 percent of hiring managers in the hospitality industry reported finding lies on resumes. The transportation/utilities and information technology fields followed with 59 percent and 57 percent respectively. Closing the list of industries with dishonest workforce is the Government with percent of resumes lies.
Do these lies work? In most cases, no. Most companies disqualified candidates after discovering their dishonest. Thirty-six percent still considered the candidate, but ultimately passed on hiring them. Six percent of hiring managers overlooked the “flawed resume” and hired the applicant anyway.
According to the survey the most common falsehoods told on resumes are:
- 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 a job title