HR: Dumb and Dumber Resumes

According to a story in the WSJ (5/26/2009), job seekers are playing down their accomplishments, often with the advice of career counselors, to increase their likelihood of getting a job in today's rough economy. Job seekers are leaving out details of their recent experience, they changing job titles, eliminating degrees, etc.

Comment: Can you hear me SCREAM? I would so love to interview one of the "candidates" because I would guarantee that my use of "performance-based" hiring techniques would reveal these FRAUDS!! Those from my HR Certification classes know that I can be quite tough at times on using "lying on a resume" to eliminate (or terminate) a candidate, or even worse a good performing employee who is later discovered to have falsified something relatively irrelevant like a degree. But in this case, I'd be very supportive of rather harshly dismissing a candidate. One temp agency advised a candidate to change her titles from "manager" to "staff."

There are so many things wrong with this practice, for both candidates and employers. I know the market is tough but organizations should be be careful to make sure they're not hiring individuals who are overqualified and who are lying on their applications. And candidates, you may not be able to find the exact job you want right now -- but do you really want to lie your way into a job that is not going to be satisfying and where at some point your true experiences are going to be discovered -- great for a long term working relationship.

Can you hear me SCREAM?