Like the Nike slogan states, “Just Do It”. In this day and age where there are job descriptions that require 4-5 years experience it is absolutely okay to stretch the truth as long as it favors you in the end. A resume is typically viewed as a reflection of who you are before you get the opportunity to come face to face with an interviewer. The truth of the matter is if he is displeased or unimpressed with your resume, you will most likely not be called in for an interview. It is no surprise that people continuously enhance their resumes especially with the unemployment rate on a steady rise. While some people are lucky enough to get a job offer, most of them are being paid way less than they were earning, and they are being hired at under 30 hours a week so the company can avoid offering benefits.
In reality, companies typically will not mention how poor the working conditions are. They tend to exaggerate the pay, and often fail to mention that some jobs are not readily available to outsiders but under legal obligations they are required to post all open jobs, in some cases, the hiring manager has already predetermined that they will hire internally (Sullivan). This unfortunately is the bitter truth. Most job seekers prepare for interviews, drive up to 90 minutes to interviews only to find out weeks later that the company has decided to go with someone different. With that being said, I doubt companies really get hurt by an applicant’s white lie. The applicant goes unbothered if he does not land the job and resumes his job search while the company obviously moves on from that interview. In the long run, no one suffers for it. However, falsifying information that can be proven and tested i.e, drug and background tests can be detrimental to an applicant and reduce his likelihood of getting the position since employers spend thousands of dollars screening applicants during the process (Harding).
As tempting as lying on your resume can be, do you strongly believe an applicant who has been unemployed for over a year would be mindful of what he presents to the interviewer? Do you think he is concerned about the interviewer’s view of him or his resume when his main goal is acing the interview and landing the job? No, because as long as he is comfortable with omitting the truth or falsifying his resume the last thing he is worried about is his ethics.
Sullivan, Dr. John. “Opinion Recruiting’s Dirty Little Secrets — What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You .” ere.net, n. d. Web. 5 Sep. 2014. <http://www.ere.net/2011/12/26/recruiting’s-dirty-little-secrets-what-you-dont-know-can-hurt-you/>.
Harding, Ryan. “5 Lies That Damage Your Reputation as a Job Applicant .” Business2community, 18 03 2014. Web. 5 Sep. 2014. <http://www.business2community.com/human-resources/5-lies-damage-reputation-job-applicant-0815564
This was an insightful exposition, and I believe it was delivered very clearly. There are however some passages which I feel like should be elaborated on. Starting with this statement “In this day and age where there are job descriptions that require 4-5 years experience it is absolutely okay to stretch the truth as long as it favors you in the end. ” Stretching the truth is often a good way to exaggerate your prior experience or skills in whatever format to put your skills in the terms of an employer. For instance, I could have the skills of using Microsoft word, but simply putting ‘proficient in Microsoft word’ sounds a bit normal and doesn’t stand out in the eyes of an employer. Instead, putting ‘experience using Microsoft word for 10 years’ might make an employer remember that particular entry in your resume. I think elaborating the truth is a better strategy to use while creating a resume.
Like you explain later “companies typically will not mention how poor the working conditions are. They tend to exaggerate the pay,” or in other words companies typically exaggerate or elaborate the jobs they are offering in order to make the job look more desirable, which in the eyes of the employer sorts out and filters the future undesirable possible employees from the desirable future employees. In my view of creating a resume, you should make a believable exaggeration of your skills as long as they do not stretch the truth and remain true to the actual skills you have. An employer is interested in the way a person presents themselves, and in my opinion exaggerating your skills is better than leaving out skills you might have. It is better to over sell yourself to employers than undersell yourself.
Regarding lying, or “stretching the true” on a resume, I find the use of completely false information to be morally reprehensible; however, I believe instead of “stretching the true” on a resume, a potential employee can be more effective by using carefully chosen rhetoric to sway the employers perceptive. By this I mean, instead of “stretching the true,” carefully wording work experience and description, within the limits of honesty, a resume can portray both honestly and the best value. Through using a more polished and enticing rhetoric when developing a resume, the writer can portray experience that may be minimally relevant to the position as beneficial experience and on-the-job education, thus, drawing positive attention to the resume while not falsifying the information.
Like the above post, I agree that it should be elaborated more on what kind of skill you posses and how many years you are experienced in it. Its okay to say one thing, but a better thing to say more on your skill and/or resume. From my experiences, I always recheck and update my resume before sending it out. It gives me a chance to see what words I can use that will “catch” the employers eyes or machine word catching. Also in my opinion, I never think its okay to completely lie on your resume. Yes, you can land the job. But will you know how to connect computer wires and reprogram softwares once you are up to it? Of course you wouldn’t. Like the above post, do not stretch the truth. Just be yourself, that is all that matters. If you do not land the job because you think your resume is weak, then just try again! Its great experience to try again and update your resume. Ethnics matter!!
The one statement that you made quedtioning the ethics in the workplace really took my mind on a ride. The issue here is the fact that people tend to lie on their resume. If someone actually gets the job they enter what they think to be a promising existence and are turned to the lies that are presented with the application itself. How can we question and accuse a soon to be employer on lying when that is how you get someone to be attracted to the opportunity and to even get the customers themselves. I feel that the reason that the employment rate has become so high is because the qualifications for most people may seem to be impossible. Why is it that even if a company is hiring, they can have a hundred candidates but end up choosing none because of a single flaw on their resume? There is no equal ground when it comes to applying for a job. It is a dog eat dog world and even when it comes to providing for yourself and your family nothing it easy and set in stone.
I found your article to be extremely ill-researched and layered with a great deal of generalizations. You opened by expressing that you believed it was perfectly okay to “stretch the truth” on a resume. As I proceeded to read I kept in mind that though fluffing a resume was a general practice in the professional world, stretching as you described, appeared to be more like deceit. You made the claim that unemployment is on a steady rise when in fact it is at its lowest rate within the last five year 6.1% (Bureau of Labor).
You mention that falsifying information on a job application that could be tested is bad, using the example of a drug test. In that moment you fail to acknowledge the fact employers use references, often. They run credit checks which verify how long you were employed at a certain company. Professional job applicants rarely have to worry about being drug tested but credit checks and references are a sure way to be exposed by all of this stretching you are encouraging.
I would also like to address the fact you failed to acknowledge that 85% of all available jobs are not online, they are usually found through references or your personal network. You failed to mention an individual’s personal network and how in the 21st century a resume comes a dime a dozen.