Busted: 5 of the most common half-truths in resumes
While we all want to polish our resumes to perfection, half-truths are getting more common, and they almost always backfire, say our HR experts.
Last month, ConnectOne founder Elena Chow received the resumes of two ‘top graduates’ from the National University of Singapore (NUS) School of Computing.
“I was suspicious because they worked in unknown companies right after graduation and continue to work for unknown companies. They also had a foreign mobile number even though they claimed to be in Singapore.
“So I casually asked them about their favourite canteen in NUS and they went silent,” she said.
While such blatant lies stand out because they are rarer, half-truths are far more common, according to the hiring managers and recruiters we spoke to.
Many of these include fudged facts, deliberate omission or misleading statements related to education, job titles, work contributions and dates of employment.
One reason could be that many applicants are aware of the way many applicant screening bots sift out ‘suitable’ candidates whose resume meet minimum requirements and contain the relevant keywords. Because of that, more may be using AI, ChatGPT and other hacks to edit their resumes to meet requirements and match keywords – all just to get a foot through the door.
However, these almost always backfire. Recruiters and hiring managers are trained to sniff half-truths out by spotting inconsistency and gaps, checking against references, doing online checks, and reading body language during in-person interviews.
Though there are some who might consider a bit of fact-fudging worth the risk, getting caught in an obvious attempt to mislead or conceal information may break trust, burn bridges and gain one a bad reputation.
We ask our experts which half-truths are complete deal breakers. And where the line is burrier, our experts share how applicants can better navigate the grey areas without fact-fudging.
#1 Claiming to be from a well-known university after just an online course or semester
Recently, there has been a huge surge of self-proclaimed ‘Harvard' and ‘Oxford’ graduates - basically people who just did one or a few online courses by these universities, said Fiona Hee, director of ConnectOne.
Some applicants who did a semester in well-known universities like Colombia may also label themselves ‘Colombia graduate’. In addition, in Indonesia, a lot of people who did online courses from top local universities may list the university on their resume so that it looks like they have a bachelor’s degree from the university, she added.
This looks like a deliberate attempt to mislead, whether or not that was the original intention.
While it may get applicants the first interview, such clickbait tactics are unlikely to secure the job because they are easy to expose. Candidates will likely only end up wasting everyone’s time, including their own.
On a similar note, if a candidate failed to complete a course or dropped out, he or she should not list it on his or her resume without declaring or informing the hiring manager that it was incomplete, said Sabrinna Soh, Human Resources Director, Pacific and Southeast Asia, Kacific Broadband Satellites.
This does not reflect well on the candidate, and it is not hard for hiring managers to find out the truth anyway. In some cases, universities such as NUS are already using blockchain technology to issue e-degree scrolls and e-transcripts that can be easily verified.
#2 Tweaking job titles to match keywords in the job description
“A lot of people put very fancy titles, but when I talked to them, they were not even able to explain their experience,”
- Sunehra Lakhotia, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at ConnectOne
In general, changing job titles to hack the applicant screening system is not okay – the resume should be as clean and honest as possible, stressed Sabrinna.
However, this is where some recruiters believe some grey area exists, especially in industries where companies use company-specific jargon for job titles.
For instance, in the beauty industry, where Sunehra Lakhotia, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at ConnectOne operates, the same role may fall under marketing in one company and commercial in another. So depending on that, it might be called Trade Marketing in the former, and Retail Operations in the later.
A company one of our HR consultants used to work in also gave her the title of a media buyer, even though she was doing the role of a communications manager.
“I’m not supporting the act of changing a job title to put the job into context, but it is not so much of a taboo in some industries, as long as they use a similar title which reflects their role. Otherwise, they might not get an interview and that may not be fair,” Sunehra said.
Inflating job titles on the other hand is inexcusable. “A lot of people put very fancy titles, but when I talked to them, they were not even able to explain their experience,” Sunehra said.
In fact, sometimes these fancy titles do not mean much anyway. “It is worth mentioning that sometimes the titles are not fake, but a CTO (Chief Technology Officer) at a 10,000 person company is very different from a CTO at a 10 person company. And that does change my opinion regardless of the title,” said the Head of People at a startup, who prefers to remain anonymous.
#3 Claiming credit for someone else’s work
“Usually these candidates are the same ones who are very high-level but can’t get into specifics to actually solve problems and make impact,”
- Anonymous Head of People
One of our HR experts shared anonymously that she once experienced a situation where an unethical ex-colleague claimed credit for her work. When she subsequently interviewed for a job and listed it as one of her achievements, she was mortified to find out that someone else had already falsely claimed credit for it.
Claiming credit for something that someone contributed minimally to is very common. But when exposed, it completely undermines one’s credibility. “Usually these candidates are the same ones who are very high-level but can’t get into specifics to actually solve problems and make impact,” said the anonymous Head of People we spoke to.
#4 Omitting parts of your job history
Many also tend to omit short stints in their resume, especially during COVID-19 where people were retrenched and making ends meet via side gigs like temperature screening, said Michelle Low, consultant at ConnectOne.
“I believe we will see more of this as we go through this tech winter where people are not able to secure full-time jobs, and are doing gigs and contract jobs,” she added.
Pamela Tan, consultant at ConnectOne said that while omitting such short stints is okay, if these gigs offer applications some relevant exposure and insights, they should instead gather them together under one umbrella and add them to their resume.
Some applicants also omit their earlier career history completely from their CV. “This usually happens with older people who are trying to mask their age for instance,” Michelle explained.
While she understands why they did this, when Low encounters such situations, she would nonetheless request that applicants add the rest of their career history to their CV briefly for more accurate representation.
#5 Lying about employment status or reasons for leaving a company
“If you got retrenched, you got retrenched. It’s not a shameful thing. Embrace it and turn it around. It shows strength of character, and your resilience, hunger and ability to push through difficulties,”
- Pamela Tan, consultant at ConnectOne
“We had a candidate for a senior position who said he was still working at his last company as a sales director. My boss felt that it was amiss that he did not have a Linkedin account so we called the company and found out he left months ago. We did not hire him,” said Jerviel Lim, Head of People and Culture at Tatsu Works.
More commonly found are CVs that indicate no end date to a candidate’s last employment although they have already left the company. When asked why, a particular candidate that Elena interviewed answered, “I thought this is the best way to at least get a first interview and then during the interview explain that it was a mistake.”
“Sometimes I meet candidates that are a bit beaten down because it’s their first retrenchment and they do not want to share this,” explained Pamela.
There are also candidates who fudge employment dates to cover gaps in employment, or claim to be self-employed or freelancing during periods of unemployment.
Such false claims are easily disproved, and many candidates do not understand the extent of damage these little white lies or deliberate omission can cause.
Instead of fudging facts, Pamela suggested spinning it from a positive angle.
“If you got retrenched, you got retrenched. It’s not a shameful thing. Embrace it and turn it around. It shows strength of character, and your resilience, hunger and ability to push through difficulties,” she said.