Are you an upstanding member of society who would never tell a lie about anything? Or are you the kind of person who plays fast and loose with the truth and doesn’t give a monkeys?
People have been talking about this with regard to… ahem… embellishing your employment history, after user TheNoodleCanoodler posted this on the AskUK subreddit:
Who has lied on their CV and what did you lie about?
Not trying to get anyone in trouble, but was having a conversation with my wife who thinks everybody does it. This got me thinking what you may have lied about? Did you get away with it?
The replies showed that it goes on way more than you might think.
1.
‘Said I was ‘proficient in Excel’ when all I knew was how to bold stuff and make the columns vibe. Still got the job.’
–lilacpuddles
2.
‘I can do basic Excel stuff. Pivot tables at a push. Joined an organisation and showed my boss how to average data in a column. It was like I had shown them fire for the first time and I was the designated Excel expert from then on.’
–First-Lengthiness-16
3.
‘Couple of my old bosses have said they can vouch for me and one company I used to work for went ‘bust’ overnight and the MD ran off into the wind with our money so there’s no references to be had there. Means I can really embellish that role.’
–DongErectus
4.
”Works well in a team environment’. Biggest lie I’ve ever told! Most people piss me off.’
–pompombum
5.
‘I had a period after university where I had some shit jobs, went travelling, did a bit of job-hopping, had a small amount of contract work all intermixed with unemployment. I just blocked the whole five years as ‘independent freelancer’ and listed some of the contract work as ‘clients’.’
–ToManyTabsOpen
6.
‘I explained a CV gap by saying I had worked for a startup company but could not discuss details due to an NDA. Really I was just playing online poker.’
–jtr99
7.
‘Nobody’s ever asked to see my GCSE’s so over the last few years they all got bumped up a grade.’
–msully89
8.
‘I lied that I had a particular job in a particular city . Went for an interview and the one guy was from that particular city and knew the establishment that I had claimed to work at and began to ask me questions and dropped names of people that worked there and I had to blag it. He looked a bit confused at my answers tbh! Still got the job so he obviously didn’t check.’
–Alternative-Fox-7255
9.
‘I’ve been a team leader at Woolworths, store manager at Blockbuster and area manager at Thomas Cook.’
–Hill_of_Phil
10.
‘I had a friend struggling to get into IT so he made up a fake company, made them a website and domain, and then used them as a reference. Most larger companies outsource there recruitment checks and they just want it done and to move on so was super easy.’
–BigFaithlessness618
11.
‘My job title changed once a few years ago. The role didn’t change, the pay didn’t change. Just the title to bring us inline with the rest of the business. But it looks like a promotion on paper. Supervisor to manager.’
–CynicalSorcerer
