« One in two employers regards it as the biggest application error »: why you have to be careful with lies on your resume
Candidates sometimes do everything to distinguish themselves. Yet honesty is still the best strategy, it sounds with Jeroen Diels, Regional Managing Director at Robert Half. « Employers and recruiters usually look through lies quickly. Three in four employers delete candidates if they notice that they lie. And one in two regards it as the biggest job error. »
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Your experience a bit thickened or fill the gaps between jobs on your resume, it often happens under the guise of a lie to best. There are no exact figures. In the Netherlands it is talking about one in eight applicants who try to increase their chance of success by using one or more lies. But people usually don’t like to talk about it.
« It is a thin boundary between candidates who try to optimize as much as possible out of uncertainty and their CV to have the best opportunities, and candidates who think that a lie will pass, » Diels said. But research from a few years ago showed that three out of four employers indicated that they were catching applicants for untruths.
Most popular lies
And although employers are not surprised when they come across small exaggerations, it remains a risk for the applicant. « Once your reputation gets a dent, you don’t just recover, » Diels emphasizes.
The five most popular lies
A diploma state that it was never achieved, or a un-completed training as completed proposals is one of the most common lies.
Also functions Proposals longer than they lasted, make temporary projects look like fixed jobs or claim that you have led a team that does not even exist. At first glance, it may come across well, but is also easy to check with your former employer.
Also about the reason for departure In another company, the truth becomes a twist. Departed or fired yourself, it makes a difference. Because why are you fired?
Skills, language skills or technical skills Exaggerate or come up with, hoping that nobody tests. Another return. But there is also a high risk that you will fall through the basket quickly. For example, if you claim to speak German quickly, but you don’t feel like saying, that is anything but good. You better say that your German is not that good but that you want to work on it.
Also for False references or recommendations You can quickly check via vague connections. A phone call or e -mail to your former boss and you are, figuratively, exposed with the buttocks.
What if it comes out?
« Then the only right approach is to play an open card, » advises Jeroen Diels. « Sometimes it is a human mistake: a mistake in the data or a misunderstanding. That can be justified. But when it comes to conscious deception, there is a good chance that the end is a story for your application. »
And if the lie comes to light when the contract has already been signed?
« Lying on your resume can certainly be a reason for dismissal. It is a mistake, and the trust between employer and employee is violated, » warns Geert Vermeir of the Legal Knowledge Center of SD Worx. In certain circumstances it can even justify a dismissal for urgent reason. Without cancellation allowance or term.
Read too. Why you should not lie about your current wage for an application
In the latter case, according to Vermeir, there must be a serious error, which makes any further professional cooperation between both parties immediately and definitively impossible. And then strict conditions in the field of timing and formalities also apply. In the event of a discussion, a court may have to comment on this.
« Which ‘lie’ we speak, that will be the question in this discussion. Really a manifest lie (a made -up diploma, an experience that is not really there, …), or rather a somewhat too positive estimate of, for example, language skills? And how aware was that lie not a oblivion, or a mistake? »
But the principle is clear, says legal adviser Geert Vermeir: With a lie you run a risk of a dismissal, always. « Don’t do it. »
Is lying on your resume also punishable?
« In certain circumstances it can also be considered as a criminal crime: forgotment. There is a falsification of Scripture if the forgery is accompanied by deceptive insights and relates to specific documents that enjoy a certain credibility according to the law, » said SD Worx. A diploma for example.
