It can be tempting to lie about your experience and skill on your resume, especially if you’ve been out of work for a while. While it’s understandable, you should never lie on your resume. Here are a few reasons why.
Background Checks
If you are applying for a position, especially if it is a management or high profile position, you can trust that your prospective employer is going to check your references and former employers. By law, in most states, an employer can only confirm if someone had worked for them and when, but that doesn’t mean that other information isn’t given. If you say, you were the CFO of a company, and your prospective employer contacts them and finds out you only worked in the accounting department, you will probably not get hired. In the digital age, we live in; it is too easy to check to see if what you say is in your resume is true or not. You have a much bigger digital footprint than you realize, and it isn’t too hard to follow those footprints to the truth.
The Truth Eventually Comes Out
Even if the works of fiction on your resume make it past the background checks and you get hired, disaster awaits you. Let’s say that you say you claim you can speak Russian on your resume even though you don’t know one word. In this scenario, a Russian client comes to town to meet with your company, and your boss remembers seeing on your resume that you speak the language. Imagine the repercussions when your boss finds out you were lying on your resume about speaking Russian. A thousand similar scenarios to this one all end in the same way, with you unemployed. So even if you get away with lying on your resume initially, it will catch up with you sooner or later.
The Sword of Damocles
In the tale Sword of Damocles, the same-named character switched places with a king for a day, but not before the king arranged to have a sword suspended over his throne by a single horsehair. Damocles learned a lesson as the sword dangled over his head, threatening to drop at any moment, always living in fear of the sword. You will experience a similar sensation if you lie on your resume. You will go to your new position every day, wondering if it is the day you will be found out. Living in fear is no way to live, and even if you manage to upgrade from your previous job, the stress of being found out will negate any pleasure you might have had from the new position.
The Bottom Line
Lying on your resume will eventually lead to disaster one way or another. It is not worth the stress and damage to your reputation to lie on your resume. The old saying goes, “honesty is the best policy”,, and when it comes to resumes, it rings true.
Brian Bailie Jr Writing Service Writes Strong and Honest Resumes
If you want to strengthen your resume without lying, we can optimize your resume so that you improve your chance of being interviewed. Call us or fill out our contact form. A member of our staff will be in touch to discuss upgrading your resume. Don’t lie on your resume; let us showcase your experience!