Lying On Your Resume

In today's job competitive job market, it can be tempting to embellish your resume with a few white lies.

However, employers are becoming increasingly wary of resume liars and are finding newer, more effective ways of sniffing them out. These are the various places where you could be caught cheating:

What You Should not Do

Job Experience Gaps

It’s pretty clear that you should never lie about your work experience. It is likely that companies listed in the Work Experience section in your resume will be contacted for verification.

Education Kinks

Do you really think nobody notices educational degrees that you don't have? You might have the skills, but it's better to be honest about your qualifications. There is only so far you can get; many organizations will ask for photocopies of your certificates.

What you Should Instead Do

Now that you know the all the don’ts, how can you build a resume that will perfectly highlight your skills and capabilities without lying?

Give yourself Credit

Your expertise and skills are important indicators of your ability to cope up with the responsibilities of your work profile. For some positions, you may only have the vaguest of ideas what exactly is the employer is looking for. There are many companies that look for people who can either be trained or can learn on the job.State the skills you have gained as an employee or volunteer.

Skill-set Fibs

Be very careful to focus only on skills

Expand your descriptions.

Instead of "I worked in an office."

say "I was in charge of answering the calls in a professional manner and then directing them to the proper departments. During busy work environments, I was easily able to multi-task by providing useful organizational support to the head receptionist, which included including maintaining a proper filing system, processing all inter office memos, delivering all official documents in a timely fashion and directing clients to their meeting appointments. I was also able to quickly learn the database management system of the office and helped in creating good working environment for the with office staff.."

This example makes it clear that it’s acceptable, and even advisable to elaborate on skills acquired from your previous organization. But make sure that you do so in a manner that’s honest and ethical.

For more help, turn to professional resume writers. There are also dozens of free resume writing software available online, which will provide you useful suggestions on phrasing your resume for a specific position.