Lies on Resumes ????

According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey of more than 3,100 hiring managers and over 8,700 workers nationwide conducted from May 22 to June 13, 2008, nearly half (49 percent) of hiring managers reported they caught a candidate lying on their resume.

The survey identified the most common embellishments on resumes were:

• Embellished responsibilities (38 percent)
• Skill set (18 percent)
• Dates of employment (12 percent)
• Academic degree (10 percent)
• Companies worked for (7 percent)
• Job title (5 percent)

CareerBuilder.com went on and asked hiring managers to share the most memorable or outrageous lies they came across on resumes. Examples include:

1) Claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family

Why in the world would you claim to be a member of that family? Unless, you were trying to get into politics, wanted to die at a young age or were attempting to work in Boston at the Boston Brewing Company for all of the FREE Samuel Adams !

2) Invented a school that did not exist.

Because claiming you went to the community college in town was not prestigious enough.

3) Submitted a resume with someone else's photo inserted into the document.

He/she was really freakin' ugly or fat.

4) Claimed to be a member of Mensa

Didn't feel like they were a big enough of a geek, wanted more pressure.

5) Claimed to have worked for the hiring manager before, but never had.

The old adage, it's not what you know, but who you know.....

6) Claimed to be the CEO of a company when the candidate was an hourly
employee

WTF, this person really thought very highly of themself or they really were the CEO of themself. This is really taking Tom Peters' "Brand You" or "Free Agent" concept to a whole new level.

7) Listed military experience dating back to before he was born

It was really a previous life, he help conquer Rome back in the day

8) Included samples of work, which the interviewer actually did.

Those who can do apparently interview and those who can't steal shamelessly (and get caught)

9) Claimed to be Hispanic when he was 100 percent Caucasian

Why? because of affirmative action quotas

10) Claimed to have been a professional baseball player

Well, who the hell knows about this one. Isn't professional baseball player an oxymoron anyway?

As long as we have resumes and applications, we will have applicants trying to fool the hiring managers because they want jobs. Hiring managers, need to work closely with their HR partners to catch these lies through the interview process and appropriate reference checking.

If the hiring managers don't ask for help, caveat emptor !!!!

For what it's worth..... Politically Incorrect HR