Should You Lie on Your Resume?

Before you start creating fake jobs on your resume, or even faking dates of employment for prior jobs, take a step back and think long and hard about what you’re about to do.

There’s noting illegal about lying on your resume. But that doesn’t mean that you should be doing it. In some cases lying on your resume is not needed. Other times it might end up putting you in a bad spot. You can lie on your resume, but that doesn’t mean you should.

 If the recruiter or employer does find out that you’ve lied on your resume, then they will simply blacklist you from future roles. In some companies, if you’re found out to have lied on your resume you might be terminated as per the terms of your hiring agreement.

If you are someone who is in the middle of crafting an updated resume, and you might be tempted to lye about prior work experience, then this article is for you.

What we’ll go over are some of the more common issues that surround lying on your resume and discuss why it might be a bad idea to lie and why some people choose to anyway.

Why Do People Lie: Common Reasons

There is no one reason why people lie on resumes. Most people won’t fess up to lying on a resume, and when employers find that they have lied they either eliminate the person from the interview process, or, if they are already working, terminate them if their hiring statement included terms that allow it.

Recruiters are well aware that most people lie on resumes. If you are a recruiter, then you’ve seen hundreds of resumes which are clearly made up and filled with lies. Many people create fake companies, create fake job titles, and make up years that on review don’t hold up to scrutiny. This is one of the reasons job interviews aren’t a waste of time, they help to suss out the fradulent people.

In certain industries it’s expected to have a fake resume. Recent graduates often have fake companies and list jobs that they never held (it’s not uncommon for relatives to be fake references as well).

The reason that people lie on their resume is to make their employment history more impressive.

New graduates from college often don’t have solid resumes. Why? Because they were neglectful of working internships and instead worked retail jobs (which are not impressive on a resume, sorry to say).

Older people who have been out of school for some time are even more concerned about their job history. This is why it’s also common to see people of all ages lying on their resume.

In general, people want to cover:

• Lack of experience
• Career gaps
• Getting Fired or Laid Off
• Age

The worst kind of lying on a resume is to claim you have certain experience or certifications. In some instances, this can even be criminal (Nurses who practice without a license, for example).

The more clinical and the less professional the role, the more likely it is that there will be professional credentialing specialists who are assigned to check the validity of the resume.

In the professional world, a resume means less than performance. However, for government work and medical work, people obtain roles based on length served at prior jobs, certifications, and degrees.

This is why companies perform background checks and education verification as well as employment histories for anyone who works in a hospital or government role. The jobs themselves require very little work, and they are very desirable, so it becomes important to check that the resume is not full of lies.

For the regular person who is lying to cover a career gap, or fudge dates of employment, it can be worth it if that land that job. However, it’s often a risky move.

For people who are forging medical degrees or nurses who have lost their license due to criminal behavior, lying on a resume is a way to continue to make enormous sums of money working for an overburdened hospital.

Finally, there is a segment of the population who have fake resumes but they have not lied. Millions of people who are clients of the social service system and job training programs around the country have case managers write their resumes for them. These resumes tend to be created from templates that non-profits use for all of their clientele.

Savvy recruiters and seasoned employers know how to spot fake resumes that are the result of a non-profit job training program, and they understand that it’s not the fault of the person who uses that resume as their own.

In the case of age, many people want to lie to cover their age. It’s simply a fact that there is ageism in the workplace. Just look at the famous example of IBM and Dinobabies to see how age is treated in the workplace.

Is It Worth It To Lie on Your Resume?

Most of the time it’s not worth it to lie on your resume. Unless you have extremely long career gaps which you can’t explain, lying on a resume with dates and jobs is not a great idea.

If it’s a minor thing such as changing job titles, then it likely won’t be caught. But if you are inventing entire companies or claiming that you worked in a capacity that you never did, then it might be a concern.

If you are lying to get a job that you’re not qualified for, consider how you will keep that job? Are you going to find people at the workplace who can do the work you’re not skilled to do? Maybe if it’s a large government role or hospital environment you can hide and not be found out. But if you’re planning on faking your way through a career without people covering for you, then you’re mistaken.

Lying to get a job you’re not skilled for is a bad idea. You will probably be fired for not being able to do the things you claim.

Recruiters have countless examples of people who can’t use Excel or PowerPoint or any other number of easy to use software programs.  People are not found to be lying, they are just found to be a failure at work and so are let go.

If you don’t know how to use software, don’t list it on your resume.

It’s not worth it to lie on your resume unless it has to do with a  a career gap. In those cases it can be worth it to lie on your resume.

If you are applying for work in a corporate environment, be very careful to lie on a resume.

If you’re looking for medical work, it doesn’t help to lie since a credentialing department will verify your resume. They will contact hospitals that you’ve claimed to work at.  They will verify the nursing license with the state. They will run a background check to make sure you have not committed a felony.

So, it’s not a good idea to lie on your resume unless you are covering a career gap. As any recruiter will tell you, a resume gap is not something you can explain in an interview. Why? Because you won’t get the interview. No one wants to hire someone who takes off months or years from work. It’s a major red flag.

Will The Recruiter or Employer Find Out That You Lied?

Yes, in most cases if the resume is checked then you will be found out. This is done in a few ways. The first way is to do something called a professional  reference check.

A professional reference check is the easiest to fake, however. Most companies do not rely only on professional references since people often have their friends or family members lie for them.

The next most common method to check if you’ve lied on your resume is to conduct an employment verification. There are professional services available to recruiters and employers that will check to see if someone actually worked at the company they claimed to have worked at.

Finally, professional credentialing departments at hospitals and other government institutions will be tasked with reviewing a persons work history.

In many instances, companies will pay services to check if you graduated from the school that you claim to have went to. In the old days it was difficult as the process involved calling the school or emailing the school and requesting a response.

It is now much easier to provide a educational verification. Most colleges have signed up (and are paid to do so) with transcript verification companies.

Do Background Checks Catch Your Lies?

Not normally. Most background checks are designed to check to see if you have committed crimes.

Corporate firms do not want to hire people who have committed crimes. Now, legally they might not be allowed to disqualify people, but most companies will find ways around working with people with a criminal record.

The non-profit sector, hospitals, and government work is different. Many people who work in the hospital setting are formerly incarcerated individuals who have become rehabilitated and now work as medical professionals or work in the hospital administrative setting. Likewise, many government workers are allowed to have a criminal record.

Background checks are designed to find if the person has committed and been convicted of a crime. However, some background checks are capable of doing everything from running a background check to a credit history to an employment verification.

The more searches that the recruiter or employer pays for, the more information they will get. There are background checks that can even determine if you’ve ever gotten a speeding ticket.

How Bad Will It Hurt Your Chances If You’re Caught Lying?

It depends on what sort of lie and it also depends on what sort of job you are interviewing for. Some industries are more lenient with lies than others.

In the medical profession, you can get away with minor lies, but in most instances you will be terminated if you are lying about having a medical license or a certification that you don’t have.

In the corporate workplace, the process is different. More of the onus is on performance. While they might only want to hire someone who has a college degree, the real important factor is to hire someone who can get the job done. However, if they find out someone lied on their resume, it will reflect poorly down the line and if you’ve yet to prove yourself they might terminate employment.

As we said, how bad the employer or recruiter takes the lie will depend on the performance as well as the role. If you claim to have a license or certification that you don’t have, and it’s required for the role, then you will lose your job if they find out.

If it’s minor, such as you claimed to know PowerPoint but really don’t, then it might not even be discovered or if it is, it might not be a big deal.