Fudging resume details is a widespread but ineffective practice. The real power of a face-to-face interview is to gauge your personality and character, not your proficiency. Avoid resume white lies to keep interviews focused and interviewer good will.
Photo by Incase.
Symkat, a blog devoted to programming, departs from their usual focus on tricks and tools of the trade to reflect on the futility of lying on your resume and how the principle reason for a face-to-face interview is to gauge your character not your proficiency.
Believe it or not, most interviews aren’t actually about finding out if you’re good at what you do or not. They’re mostly about finding out if you’re a good person. Weird, isn’t it?
They go on to highlight the chain of people you’ll meet in the hiring process, starting with HR and meandering through hiring managers, directors, and depending on the position, a technical interviewer who will verify that you really do dream of electric sheep, know assembly code and your first communication with the world was “Hello!” scripted in Perl.
At each step in the game it becomes increasingly probable that you’ll be found out, and the chances of skipping past the technical interviewer with your clams of COBOL Kung-Fu intact are slim. Your first interaction with your potential future employer will be propping up an inflated resume when really what they’re trying to establish is if you’re going to be a good fit for the company and the climate.
Check out the full article for more insights into the hiring process and just how wrong claiming “I know Perl!” can go when it comes time to prove it.
Stop Lying On Your Resume [Symkat]
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