I've never been honest on a resume, well except for this job. And that's because I had to give writing samples. So there is an idea, demand proof, in real time.
Bilingual
Talk Talking GIF by WikipediaGiphy"I got an insultingly small raise for speaking a 2nd language, and since none of my bosses spoke Spanish, they never figured out that my skill level was comparable to that of a toddler. All of our Hispanic customers found it adorable."
The Database...
"Not me but I remember seeing someone who clearly did. I got hired as a contractor for a major brand pretty much everyone has heard of. They had a lean fiscal year and laid off a large portion of their front office people. Me and anther person were hired to help fill in some holes left by the people let go."
"On our first day we were being shown some basic tasks and how to work with the database. I had a notebook with me and was taking some notes and asking a lot of questions. The other person looked like they saw a ghost. By the time we came back from lunch the other person miraculously got a better job offer and left never to return."
On the Assembeley
"I worked on an assembly line making oilfield tools, told them I had oilfield experience. Got sent to an offshore oil rig a few months later. Turns out you're just picking up heavy crap and getting picked on for the first few months anyways."
"It was a great job as a single guy. Once I got married then it was a little harder, and then it was too hard when I had a kid."
"I loved the fraternity vibe, and messing with and getting messed with. I still keep in contact with a lot of guys I met and over all it was a great experience. I cleared about $75K my first year and my hourly rate was 14/hr if that gives you an idea of how much you are working. That's when oil was 100/barrel and bonuses were pretty nice."
My First
"My very first job "in finance" was as a Data entry clerk for a mortgage lender. They asked if I could type 70+ wpm, I lied and said I could. I really could type about 25 wpm. When I got the offer, I spent everyday till my hire date practicing the crap outta my typing speed. Got up to about 50 wpm, which was enough to overlook my first two weeks of the job. By the time I got promoted to underwriting a year later, could easily type 80+wpm, and knew 10 key by touch."
Salute
GIF by Broad CityGiphy"Not me, but my Dad when he was drafted for WWII. They asked if he could touch type, he said yes. I don't think he had even seen a typewriter. But they put him in intelligence because of his answer and no one ever questioned his typing skills."
Well sometimes it all doesn't work out. That's why you have to be prepared to learn quickly when you're telling a lie. Prepare your lies, that's rule number one. And be simple in your tall tales.
6 Years Later
Kermit The Frog Reaction GIFGiphy"I said I was proficient in software I had never used before. When I got asked for an interview, I learned enough to BS my way through. When I got the job, I spent the next two weeks learning the crap out of that software. 6 years of using it all day every day, and training other people how to use it, I'd say I did pretty good."
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Way What?
"Not me, but a guy I've worked with on occasion had gone to school to become an architect. There was a prestigious firm that he really wanted to work for but they kept rejecting him. Still, he didn't stop applying and one day they said they had an opening but it wasn't for architecture, rather wayfinding (like designing directional signage etc. for facilities or even cities), and they asked if he had experience doing this. He lied and said yes and got the job. Now the guy is in his 70s, about to retire, and is super well known for his creative and clever wayfinding systems."
Mixed-ish
"Not me but my sister. A little background, we're mixed(ish). Our dad is white and our mom is Hispanic. I learned Spanish later on but my sister never learned it, but maybe because my mom and I are fluent in both Spanish and English I guess my sister thought she was fluent in Spanish by proxy."
"So on her application she lied and said she was fluent in Spanish. She didn't know at the time but the company's clientele was roughly 85% Hispanic, most of whom spoke little to no English. She had the job for a couple hours."
Tell the Truth
"College buddy left after four years or so. Couple years later we are hanging out and he is a energy commodity analyst. Wtf? Lied and said he had a mathematics degree. They never checked, he did well. Couple years later he gets a huge promotion to switch to another company. Tells the truth that time. They hire on the condition he finishes his degree. They got busy, told him to drop out. He is now a C level executive of a smaller energy logistics company."
- mtgmike
Pivot
Friends Lol GIF by HBO MaxGiphy"Said I could do pivot tables. Had a very basic knowledge of Excel. Got the job and literally never had to do a pivot table 🤣 Picked up a lot just by playing around with Excel too."
The Long Haul
"I applied for a job as a truck driver. The only experience I had was in a vehicle the size of a small U-Haul, delivering for a Vietnam veterans fundraising organization. Almost 18 years later, I'm still behind the wheel for the same company, and I've gotten my commercial driver's license."
Just Show Up!
"My uncle did this. Showed up for a mass interview. They said they would call people they wanted after. He didn't get a call, but found out where people were supposed to go the first day. He just showed up! I think when he was asked, he just told them that he had been told to come, even though his name wasn't on the list. He retired from that company about 45yrs later."
In America
"When my dad first arrived as an immigrant, he took an ESL class which among other things coached students on how to get a job. The teacher literally got up there and said, "here's how you get a job in America: lie." So my dad lies and told a construction crew he could drive a forklift. The first day, they asked him to get on the forklift. My dad said, oh, I only know how to use a different model of forklift. So they taught him how to drive the forklift, and he worked there for 20 years."
And you are?
hired money GIF by OriginalsGiphy"My boss hired someone that called the store and said, "I would like to confirm my interview is on this date." My coworker had never actually submitted an application or resume, my boss just assumed it got misplaced."
I got away with it!
"I was desperate for work after grad school, and lied about my skills in Salesforce (CRM software), when asked about it at the interview. I'd never even heard of it before! I claimed I've used it plenty, and the interviewer kept asking one question after another about Salesforce and I was so desperate, and also so embarrassed about lying, that my only choice was to lie even further to cover up the original lies."
"So by the end of the interview, I had dug myself into a hole of lies so deep, the only way I got out of it was because my new manager has obviously never used Salesforce herself either. So I get the job, and I'm thrown head first into becoming the team's new Salesforce wizard. Thankfully it was pretty easy to learn, and since I used it every day/all day long, I'd become pretty skilled at it in a few weeks. It's now the most honest part of my resume!"
The Little Lie
"It wasn't on my resume, per se. But when I was in my early 20s (55 now) I was working for a company doing basically video editing. They needed someone in the IT department, and the manager knew I had a home PC and asked me if I "knew anything about mainframes."
"I lied, said I did, and he transferred me. He figured out pretty quickly that I was full of crap, decided I was still the best candidate, rolled up his sleeves and taught the crap out of me. Over 30 years later, he's still the best boss I ever had, taught me how to be a husband and a father, taught me how to manage projects large and small and how to manage teams large and small."
"Still one of my best friends, considers me his second son and I certainly consider him my second father, and I've had an IT career ever since. Been the Director of IT for 3 separate companies, plus owned my own technical consulting firm, etc. So, that little lie worked out pretty good, I think."
- dramboxf
Zero
"Not me but have a friend who had basically zero experience in IT security make his Helpdesk experience on a resume look like he handled security related tasks and issues for years. Ended up getting an entry level IT security position and today is now a Senior IT security engineer making 150k."
- Thew211
Hey Alaska
Saturday Night Live Finger Guns GIF by HULUGiphy"I hired someone like this. In the interview he claimed to have experience working with all of our equipment and we hired him."
"He showed up from Alaska and had absolutely no idea what any of it was or how it worked. I spent three months training him on the most basic equipment and he couldn't figure it out."
The Comeback
"We hired someone who lied on their resume, it took about 2 weeks but we fired them. They later applied to a similar position with a different team in the same company and referenced working on my team. So yeah, they didn't get hired when the obvious reference check was made."
"I've also known of 2 cases where people were so bad at their jobs, it prompted someone to look up their degree and find it was fake. They got fired, and in one case sued. If you are going to lie, try to not lie big, or about something easily provable."
The Blacklister
"I was running the network for a pretty big company and the boss hired a temp to help me with a project. He claimed to have a lot of experience with Cisco routers. Within 2 days it was obvious that he had no experience at all, didn't even know how to log in to the router. He was fired by my company and blacklisted by the temp agency."
The truth is always best, until its not. But trying to do better in life is hardly a malevolent motive. Some small lies on a resume still prove to be productive. And nowadays you can learn anything on YouTube. That counts as a work study.
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