A recent study found that atleasy 85% of participants admitted to lying on their resume. The job seekers lies on their resume can be categorized into :
- Work history & job responsibilities.
- Abilities- how they performed their deliverables
- Interests
- Involvement
Lies on LinkedIn profiles can also be divided into above mentioned four categories. Job seekers lie more on LinkedIn profiles about the topics which are hard to verify during the interview- “Interests”. People usually lie less about job responsibilities & work history since these things are easy to ratify.
Let us discuss how you can eradicate lies from your resume & LinkedIn profile.
- Adjectives & adverbs: Generally lie enters into the resumes through adjectives & adverbs which makes people stretch the truth. Let us explain this with an example. Consider the bullet point:
“ Quickly & successfully built stakeholder relationships”
The words “ quickly” & “ successfully” reflect opinion! Who can ratify if this is truth or lie? When the hiring managers see such adjectives & adwords on the resume, they wonder whether the candidate is lying!
The perfect bullet point- “Partnered with senior management to function across a full stack of strategic interventions for global supply chain management solutions”
This is a fact( not an opinion) & lends more credibility.
So what should you do? Carefully read your resume & eliminate such adjectives & adverbs
- Make it public: If you want to make people believe your resume, make it public. Submit your resume to public scrutiny & eyes of ex-colleagues who are aware about your career & job responsibilities. No one wants to get their lie noticed, therefore they keep their resume private. Therefore when you make your resume public, it adds to your credibility. One way is to copy paste your job responsibilities & noteworthy achievements on your LinkedIn profile
- Employment dates & titles: Employment dates & titles are also subject to lies. Therefore rather than lying, avoid mentioning months. Mention all dates in years. If the interviewer wants to know about exact dates, they will inquire from you. Most job seekers lie about job titles when their job title does not match the keywords on job posting? It is ok to reframe your job title until it gives the correct description of what you did/have been doing. You can also add a parenthetical job title.
Are you looking for some career advice & guidance about how to write an executive resume or have a rebranded Linkedin profile? As the founder & executive resume coach at Sushant Kumar Ventures, offering executive resume writing & LinkedIn profile writing services for modern day job seekers, I would be happy to chat to help you meet your career goals; Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/fbPEMJ3
