Is it Okay to Lie on Your Resume?

Have you ever lied on your resume and weren’t sure if you’d actually get away with it?

Whether you got the job or not will probably give you a good idea.

Lying on your resume is one of the most common mistakes applicants can make. Now I’m not saying that you’ll never get away with it. It really just depends on what you’re lying about and who’s screening your application.
 

Did you tell them you had a degree but don’t actually have anything to back it up? Or maybe you lied about at the circumstances in which you left your last job but they made a call and found out the truth. Either way, lying on your resume can be super risky and typically not worth it.

This does not mean that you can’t embellish or talk yourself up to your potential employer. The whole point of an application and resume is to sell yourself and your skills. It sounds rather risqué but think of it from an employer’s perspective. When they look to hire a new employee, they’re looking for someone they can invest in to help improve the quality of their company and its service. In the end, they’re paying you to do a job and your first impression is your resume and cover letter.

Ensuring that your resume is easy to read and well written will help you get that call for an interview. A sloppy resume will make an employer think that maybe you’re a sloppy employee too and lying about some of your qualifications definitely won’t help you.

Being qualified for a position doesn’t mean that you always have to have experience. Sometimes you can use your personal skills to leverage your way into that position. Maybe you have great communication or people skills. That’s great! Use that so the employer reviewing your application can see that you’re great with customers and coworkers alike. Something that you can add for a little embellishment, even if you’ve never been in a supervisory position, embellish your “people skills” with “leadership experience”. An employer will read about your interactions and immediately know that you’re independent in your work and can work with other’s and treat them with kindness and respect.

If an employer is looking through your resume, most of the time, they are going to think the best of you because that’s all you show on your resume. Don’t give them a reason to think poorly of you. Sometimes, that job you got fired from just isn’t worth putting on your resume unless it leaves a significant gap. Keep your resume short and sweet with the most relevant experience at the top so that’s what they see first. No matter what, whatever you put on your resume, you have to be able to live up to that. Keep things as realistic as possible.