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Résumés:
To Lie or Not to Lie?
by David Kushner |
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Meet Joe X. After four years at a state university, he was ready to head
out into the workforce. His dream job: to land a sweet gig working at a TV
show in New York, a place where he could get his foot in the door and start
snaking his way up to being the next Aaron Spelling.
| "A fluffed up list of qualifications might get you in the door, but..." |
For weeks, he scoured all the want ads and Web sites until he
found the perfect opportunity working as a production assistant on a major
network series. Scanning down the job requirements, Joe was psyched — at
least at first. Yep, he had majored in communications. Sure, he had a
passion for soap operas (well, maybe). But, um, well, five years
experience working in television production with a specialty in video
editing? Hardly. The closest he got was taping South Park every Wednesday
night.
Late at night, hunched over his computer keyboard, Joe was faced with the
quintessential résumé question: to inflate or not to inflate. He could
either list his actual qualifications — a part-time key grip internship for
a used car promo video, plus three years dunking fries at Arby's — or he
could embellish. Dress up. Lie. Who would know anyway, right? It's not
like people actually check. And if they did, he'd just do a little song and
dance and wow them with the charm his grandmother calls, "presidential."
Then again, what if he really did get busted? Everything — his career, his future — would fall apart. He'd be stigmatized forever.
Like Joe, at some point or another, everyone's tempted to pump up a résumé.
It's a hard thing to resist. After all, a résumé is your 30 second shot at
fame. Within less than a minute, a prospective employer will scan your
goods and make the crucial decision whether to call you in for an interview.
All your life, all your experience, is distilled into one double-spaced,
bolded, neat and clean sheet of paper. That's a lot of pressure.
The résumé is all about language, all about how you sell yourself
and your experience. The key is in the presentation. Essentially, there
are three levels of résumé inflation: the tweak, the pump, and the outright
lie. The tweak is probably the most kosher of all alternatives, in fact,
it's an expected part of the process. After all, if you spent three summers
mowing lawns, are you going to put down "Lawn Mower" or "Director of
Landscape Architecture"? The pump is a technique that distorts
responsibilities that are basically true. Instead of saying that you pushed
around a weed eater while rocking out to The Smashing Pumpkins, you say that you
"planned and designed an installation of botanical arts." Almost, but not
quite. The outright lie, of course, is just that. You didn't graduate
college, hell, you didn't even go, but if you slap down a B.A. in Business
Administration from University of Kansas, who's gonna know?
The truth is: maybe no one. Ask any of your friends to ask their bosses
if they check up on the info that's in most résumés. Some do, some don't.
Obviously, professional positions — doctors, lawyers, accountants, and the
like — are going to be more stringent, as are any jobs that get higher up on
the food chain. If anything, most employers will call your past employers
to check up. Will they call your school and check if you really got a 3.1
instead of a 1.3? It's unlikely. "When I'm reviewing a résumé, I don't
really have the time or patience to go calling every person or school on a
résumé," says Andrew, the managing director of a record label in New York.
"I'm looking to get a quick impression of someone, to decide if I want to
meet them face to face."
But, as they say on the X-Files, the truth is out there. If you claim to
be a Rhodes Scholar, but can't name who won the Civil War during a
conversation with the boss, she's going to get a little suspicious. If
there's any moral to résumé inflation, it's what goes around comes around.
A fluffed up list of qualifications might get you in the door, but there's
nothing that will flip out an employer more than to find out she's been
duped by her own employee. Furthermore, you've got to ask yourself, is it
really worth sweating it out every day?
When applying for a job at an environmental non-profit group, Rebecca, a 30-year-old bartender, put down that she had spent three years in the Peace
Corps, when in actuality, she was just slinging martinis in Miami Beach.
She was personable enough to make it to the last phase of the interview.
But a few days later, she got a call back saying that they had checked with
the Peace Corps office and was told she never served. "It was really
embarrassing," she says. "I didn't expect them to check. I ended up losing
the job and a lot of self-respect."
So what's a job hunter to do when she really wants a job but doesn't feel
like she has the right qualifications? It's a catch-22 that Bradley
Richardson, author of JobSmarts for TwentySomethings, says can be dealt with
creatively. "Instead of embellishing things and boggling them with B.S.,
think in terms of tangible results," he advises. In other words, Rebecca
could have talked about how she managed a $5,000 monthly budget and
managed a staff of four other bartenders.
Richardson also recommends the all powerful cover letter. "If your
experience doesn't stand out," he days, "at least you have a cover letter
where you can elaborate." A good way to do this, he says, is to sit down
with a legal pad and start brainstorming about your history, your jobs, even
your years mowing lawns. "Experience can be found in anything,"
Richardson says. "Instead of inflating your résumé, try to find value in the
things you have done."
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David Kushner is a contributing editor for Spin magazine and has written for the Village Voice, Details, Mademoiselle, HotWired, and Mondo 2000.
© 1998 Tripod, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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