everyone always says lie on your resume, and i agree that there’s no reason not to. i’ve never done it before though so i want to know what i can and can’t get away with.

for example, if i’ve been out of work since january, can i just lie and say i’m still employed by the company i quit working at in january and make it look like i don’t have an 8-month gap on my resume? or is the HR person at the place i’m applying going to be able to figure out that’s a lie?

also please give tips on what are some good lies to add, how to punch up normal looking resume shit, etc

Death to America

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    12·
    4 months ago

    Who says lie on your resume? Lying about anything that’s verifiable sounds like a bad idea. If the place you’re applying to checks your past employer and the dates are wildly off, you’re probably not going to get the job. If you lie and say you know how to do something and it’s obvious you don’t on the interview, that’s also a bad time.

    Most “lying” on resumes I’ve seen is like transforming “I used pytest” into "Wrote comprehensive testing framework[1] that integrated disparate cutting edge technologies[2]. Delivered xx% coverage[3] , eliminated cross-test contamination[4], and generated coverage reports[5] to guide the team in areas needing attention "

    1. Adding some text fixtures isn’t really a framework nor is it comprehensive, but close enough
    2. It plugs into postgres and Django out of the box. What’s written is arguably true though
    3. Really the team delivered it, but take credit.
    4. A plug-in does this for free, but take credit for installing it
    5. A different plug-in does this also for free, and another posts it on GitHub for free. But take credit.

    So you can see there’s a lot of fluff, but that’s different than like “I worked at Facebook” when you did not in fact work there. Or saying you know JavaScript because you installed ublock once.

    • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      4 months ago

      I was brought up to believe lying by omission was worse than lying by saying something you believe to be incorrect, which is a huge amount of the job application process. That said, I hot my current job by repeatedly describing myself as a jobless hobo at a technical school around lecturers. Idk ymmv

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        5·
        4 months ago

        I was brought up to believe lying by omission was worse than lying by saying something you believe to be incorrect,

        I don’t think I’ve ever heard this posotopm before. I think it depends on context and the nature of the lie.

        If they’re asking about your front end experience, saying you know Javascript when you don’t is worse than not mentioning you’re kind of bad at CSS.

        • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          5·
          4 months ago

          You did not grow up with controlling abusive parents?

          Interestingly, after beating lying out of us unless it was admitting to “crimes” we didn’t do, they were extremely annoyed that all of their kids struggled to get jobs