I am an honest person, sometimes to a fault. I lived in Kentucky for nearly three years of my adult life, and I quickly learned that there are a great number of people who see open honesty as a negative and decidedly Northern trait. So, for nearly three years I stayed remarkably quiet…and crafted a fairly native sounding accent. There are times, however, when it is universally expected that everyone should be honest:
• When speaking to your parents
• When in court
• When applying for a job
These are also the times when you will be most tempted to lie, given the potential benefits. Because recruiters understand this temptation, we now take the information on a resume with a bowl (not a grain) of salt. We look for gaps and inaccuracies to question. Every line has become suspect because the resources available to people who want to mislead us are readily available. They range for “tips and tricks” that professional resume writers will use to mask a poor work history to purchased diplomas and paid references. We know your game, and we now have to assume that anyone could be deceiving us.
If you are trying to deceive me, then you are not a candidate I want to consider, so please continue. If you would, however, like for me to seriously consider your resume, then you need to remove the veil. By this I mean that you need to strip your resume of all of the typical “tips and tricks” and present yourself as clearly as possible. No smoke and mirrors.
Include all dates
Month and year. Professional resume writers will tell you to only include the year (or, worse, no dates at all) if you have had a large gap of employment. This has become so widely used and abused that I now assume you are hiding something if you provide vague dates.
Explain yourself
Now that you have included your dates of employment, you may be worried that your resume will be thrown away when recruiters see that you have been unemployed for the last six months or that your last three positions ended within a year. Don’t leave anything to the imagination. I covered this in a previous post, so I will summarize here: tell me what happened. Tell me why you left those positions. Tell me what you have been doing for the last six months. Don’t try to gloss over or hide these things. You may add a simple line on your resume or include this information in a concise cover letter. If you do make it to an interview, I will ask for clarification on these points, since it looks like you are hiding something. It is better to be upfront from the beginning.
Focus
When listing the responsibilities of your position, focus on the responsibilities that occupied 75% of your time. You probably were inundated with various tasks throughout your time in that role, but I want to know which tasks you did so frequently that you could now do them in your sleep. I want to know how you spent the majority of your days in that role. When I see a list that rambles on for half of the page, not only do I lose interest, but I am also pretty certain that you are simply listing everything that ever touched your desk. I know that you did not perform all of those tasks all of the time, so it now appears that you were not able to specialize in any one area. Is this because of your skill level? Or, are you trying to inflate your level of responsibility? Either way, your credibility is damaged.
Tell the full story
I wish that I could find the person who created the “10-year rule.” I would like to know what they were doing 12 years ago. I’ll bet that it was important and probably relevant to what they are doing today. Even if it was not directly related, it was part of the path that brought them where they are today. Making a sharp cut-off 10 years ago when you were the HR Manager at a large manufacturing facility leaves your story unfinished. I want to see how you got there. Be sure that you include a summary of responsibilities for your most recent positions, and then if you feel that your resume is becoming too lengthy, create an “Additional Experience” section in which you simply list employment by company, job title and date. I understand that in most cases this is done by candidates who feel that they are “too experienced” (read: too old), but this trick really only calls attention to the fact that you are trying to disguise your age. [Obvious Note: it is illegal to make employment decisions based on age.] There are not many people who enter the workforce as an HR Manager. Kudos to those who do, but this is not usually the case. This smoke and mirrors act doesn’t have the intended effect, and it causes candidates to leave valuable experience off of their resume.
Don’t create something out of nothing
If you did not complete your degree, don’t pretend that you did. If you were an analyst, don’t say that you were a manager. Please do not go so far as to purchase a degree online. If you are asked for references, give real references, not your cousin. Again, these tactics have become far too common, so recruiters are suspicious. Background checks and education verification will uncover the truth.
Include verification
As mentioned in a recent post by Kris Dunn, LinkedIn has become a wonderful verification tool, as candidates are less likely to lie in a public forum. To move one step further, LinkedIn has now given its users the ability to fact-check their current and former colleagues, adding even more credibility to the profiles listed. Therefore, providing a link to your (public) LinkedIn profile can speak volumes. I want to believe you, I really do, and it will be much easier for me to do so if you are telling the rest of the world the same thing.
The consequences of being caught in one of these lies can range from an uncomfortable bump in the interview to proving yourself an unfit candidate for the company. I wouldn’t recommend taking these risks. We are not simply hiring a set of skills; we are hiring a person who will sit among us and represent our company.
So, I ask, please remove the cynic in me: tell me the truth!
Ms. Clark – it is indeed refreshing to see advocacy for the truth. Unfortunately, the truth makes lots of folks in corporate America very uncomfortable. Whether they admit it or not, their discomfort must often stem from the fact that what’s being said is not flattering to the person, place or thing being discussed. Employers are not the only ones in the interview process who should expect the truth; the interviewees should also expect it so that they can make an informed decision about the position as well.
There is really much to be said on this subject; through the years, many employers have and continue to allow ghastly treatment of employees. When those employees are in the position to seek out new employment, often, they cannot be truthful about their reason(s) for leaving the previous job because if they have been mistreated, underpaid, etc. and are truthful, they are usually perceived in a negative light by the prospective new employer.
Somehow, these large zones of discomfort have to be eradicated. No one should be afraid to tell the truth of their circumstances in an interview. There’s great difference between being truthful and “bashing” the former employer. I say tell the truth in the most accurate, respectful light. This is the only way to begin to pave the way for employers and employees to be on a fair playing field, hopefully one that will result in success for everyone.
Honesty should always be the priority, on both sides, in the interviewing process.
[...] for this role. I am not suggesting that you be dishonest (you can read how I feel about that here). But, I have had candidates tell me that they need to increase their current salary in order to [...]
Thanks, Phil, I love it when my long time Twitter followers come to visit! I’ve been meniang to ask that question for a long time. I actually have several Twitter and Facebook friends that suggest topics and then I write the post. The Whose Court is your ball in was not only suggested by a friend but since he was so articulate and I asked permission, I used much of his content in the post.So, what should I write about for you?