Résumé Lies and How to Avoid the Temptation!

With the new Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson now in the spotlight for lying about his academic qualifications, the focus on people lying on their résumés is back in the media. In his case his degree in Computer Science that appears on his résumé was found to be a misstatement. Now, that single error has created a firestorm of discussion about his credibility as a CEO of the troubled company, which has been in a downward spiral for the past five years. Yet, despite that, the focus is squarely now on Thompson’s credibility as a person, than it is on his ability as a leader to bring Yahoo! back from the brink!

This is not the first high-profile person that has been exposed about a lie on their résumé. Many examples of high-profile executives have come to light in the past with devastating results for both the person and the company, where they found employment using that lie.

Résumé lies are not limited to high-profile executives. Studies have shown that even today, where facts can be easily checked, about 38% of the résumés have one or more lies in how they convey a person’s qualifications. The most frequent lie is about a person’s responsibilities, followed by accomplishments (inflated accomplishments), titles, academic qualifications, and finally, their skills. The reason skills are the last in this list of what people lie about is perhaps because in an interview they are the first to get scrutinized, exposing the person to a lie early in the game.

The purpose of this blog is to suggest some strategies that make it easy for people to tell the truth, without jeopardizing their prospects for being seen as a qualified candidate. Here are some guidelines on how to manage your message so that your résumé is a paragon of verity:

1. Identify some key differentiators that you may have overlooked in articulating your value proposition. This will allow you to showcase your uniqueness in your résumé that will negate any temptation to overreach in how you present your message.
2. Stay away from a Functional résumé and stick to the Chronological design (with reverse chronology for your accomplishments). The Functional format lends itself more easily to misrepresenting something (the reason why people choose that format). Besides, that presentation raises red flags by its very nature in the readers’ minds.
3. Learn how to present your accomplishments in a compelling way using your leadership stories. Too much emphasis is given to one-line bullets with numbers that reflect your achievements. This design also can tempt one to exaggerate their claims. A great leadership story of accomplishments that takes a few lines to tell does not always need incredibly large numbers most people claim in their statements (sales rose 69%!) to impress readers. Factual numbers (sales rose 19%, despite the collapsing economy!) supported by a great leadership narrative can do wonders.
4. Synch up your résumé message with your LinkedIn Profile. Make sure that all facts are accurate and consistent in every message that you have out there for others to see.
5. Finally, if you are tempted to lie about your skills, at least qualify the level of your skill by using the right adjectives: “Expert at, ” “Proficient in,” and “Familiar with.” This way, if you have just purchased a book on a topic or merely enrolled in a certification course on that topic, but have never done any work using that knowledge, you can get away with using the “Familiar with” label. That way, in an interview, you can defend your entry in a tenable way.

In a tough job market lying on your résumé to get a job can be tempting; avoid this temptation at all costs by using these admonitions to protect your career and your sanity!

Good luck!

PS: From the time I started writing this blog and by the time I posted it (45 minutes later), news broke out that Scott Thompson has been now replaced by Ross Levinsohn!