Watch What You Say: Don’t Lie On Your Resume

Writing your resume is one of the most important things you’ll ever do. Your resume needs to be able to speak about who you are, even if you are not present when a perspective employer is reading it. Your resume needs to be professionally formatted and well written, but what is written is just as important as the way it’s written. As tempting as it can be, you should never lie or even exaggerate on your resume.

Many people lie or exaggerate on their resume and no one is ever the wiser, but altering your experience or resume right out of college is not a good idea at all. While it’s understandable that you want to get ahead, you should remember that your true experience will follow you around for the rest of your career. If you should be one of the unlucky that is found to be exaggerating or even lying about their past experience you’ll have to carry that around with you as well.

Your Experience and Education Is Good Enough

When you start applying for jobs and writing your resume, you need to remember that your experience and education is good enough. No one straight out of college has a ton of experience, so you need to learn how to emphasize the positive by pointing out your ambition, your desire to succeed and align yourself with the best, as well as an education that will back up all of your goals in life.

When you are able to present yourself as good enough, companies will be able to look past the fact that you are young and you do not have a lot of real world experience insofar as your job choice in concerned. Everyone has to start somewhere, and corporations big and small know this, so be honest about your past, but also be honest about how you see your future.

Smart employers know that an education is a good backing, but that drive and goals are what will carry you through and make you a huge asset to their company.

Don’t Lie! No. Not Even Little Lies Are Allowed!

Many people believe that a slight exaggeration won’t hurt anything on their resume, but why risk your chance at a great job, maybe even your dream job, because of a small exaggeration? Even the most slight exaggeration or lie can be considered fraud and most companies will cut you loose if they figure out that you were not truthful on your application or resume.

While most people never do get caught when they lie on their resume, what the lie will do for you is not worth the risk of losing your job and damaging your reputation. Even in big cities, there is an inner circle of people who talk and share information about people that are outstanding and those that have proven to be less than admirable.

You do not want to start out having employers exchanging information about “the one who lies on the resume” because they’ll wonder what else you may be exaggerating about.

You Never Know When It Will Come Back To You

Many people lie about their education or experience on their resume or in an interview to get in the door. Once they begin working and proving themselves, they totally forget that they told any mistruths about their past.

While your ability to prove yourself is great and as you go a long you may gain a lot of respect and admiration of the people that you work with, if they ever find out that you lied to get in the door your relationship will never be the same. In fact, in recent years there have been many high-ranking individuals of corporations that have lied on their resumes when they first got involved with the company.

When the companies discover, even years later, that the individual had lied about education or experience, they are often fired! How does someone recover from something like that? Why risk that sort of outcome just to get your foot in the door when it’s likely you would have been given a chance if you told the truth about education and experience.

When you graduate from college no one expects you to have ten years of experience, instead they expect you to be ready for the working experience. Good grades, internships, and relevant activities are all preferred but they aren’t things that are worth telling mistruths about.

Getting out there and applying for jobs, interviewing well, dressing the part, and carrying yourself with confidence is what you need to do to land the jobs you want, allow the experience to come truthfully and naturally.

Lying or even exaggerating about your education and experience is just not a good idea. In the short term or in the long run, it’s something that has a small chance of changing your life in very big ways.

A small lie isn’t worth damaging your credibility at any point, because once you’ve been accused of lying in the workplace, it’s something that is very hard to recover from. So, when you write your resume and interview with employers, be sure to be as honest as possible. Learn what your best attributes are and accentuate them positively.

Allow employers to see that though you may be young and relatively inexperienced, you are willing to learn and you have huge goals. Being honest will carry you much further than telling even the smallest white lie to get your foot in the door.