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Exaggerating or lying on your resume is the same as when you do it in real life. You may get caught or you may not - but it certainly reveals a lot about your character.
Most employers have less characters and integrity than the average job seeker who had to resort to making up a fake job to fill a gap because most employers disregard applicants with employment gaps.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Originally Posted by spencgr
Exaggerating or lying on your resume is the same as when you do it in real life. You may get caught or you may not - but it certainly reveals a lot about your character.
having been a hiring manager for many years, doing hundreds of interviews, it's actually fairly easy to test for exaggeration or lies in the interview process. Knowing that, I ave never done it myself, but then I have only applied for jobs I was well qualified for so no need to lie. In my current position and one previous we have had a 6 month probationary period, so when a person slipped through without their lies being caught, they were found out and let go. Overall though, in most advice forums there will be bad information as well as good, it's up to the reader to try and determine the difference before acting.
Now, recently some states have rolled out the "no determination until they speak to you" but this is where a person has to be strong enough to say "I don't know" "Beats me" "I sort of went limped after they told me I'm fired and didn't hear why" "I couldn't hear the reason with all my crying". The skilled interrogators are trained to extract information using many tricks. Those can even be false or deceptive but effective at getting you to start talking. Unemployment interviewers are not stupid, they are skilled at getting a person to talk so you have to be strong enough to refrain from being your own worst enemy by blabbing. Unfortunately many who come to the Unemployment sub forum for advice were weak.
However, I would be very interested in hearing your justification why you feel the advice to "Not take the call" is bad advice.
Sorry that I never responded to this. The reason why I felt that not taking the phone hearing call was bad advice is because I thought that you HAVE to take that call or they will not make a determination unless you speak to them. How do you folks who are giving advice know which states MUST speak with the claimant?
I recall from past experience that my state specifically says in the letter that they send something to the effect of not being able to deny or approve compensation unless you speak to them on the scheduled interview date. I have also experienced first hand myself (and witnessed others) having told the adjudicator why they were let go from their job.
Adjudicator: Why were you fired from your job?
Friend of mine: Because I had multiple sick days.
Adjudicator: Were you warned about this?
Friend: No.
Adjudicator: They never issued you a verbal or written warning?
Friend: No. They just let me go on _______ day.
In my state, it is pretty common knowledge that you'd have to do something completely outrageous like go into your boss's office and call him/her every swear word under the sky to be denied unemployment. Anyway, this is why I did not agree with your advice and should have specifically said that because of the state I am in, I disagree with your advice. Sorry to hear that it's so much harder in other states to get approved for unemployment compensation.
In my current case, if they want to speak with me, I am just going to tell them exactly what HR said when they let me go: "Performance issues." I wasn't warned, I wasn't written up, and I do not have to say anything more than the exact verbiage that HR used. Since HR says they aren't going to contest it, then I should be on the phone under 5 minutes.
Right now, only New Jersey has a "speak to us or be denied" regulation. Even this is a relatively new item. Prior to the changes late last year, no state could deny a person simply because they did not take the call. Federal unemployment regulations required determinations to be based on "provided information" and only provided information. It's important to understand that federal regulations demanded that claimants be provided benefits unless they are found to be disqualified based on the information. Absent any disqualifying reason, a claimant automatically received benefits.
Now, does this mean people haven't been conned into speaking to unemployment? Absolutely not. Its very common (just read the unemployment sub-forum here on CD) for people to panic over letters that say things like "Not taking the call could result in a denial of benefits" or "not taking the call will result in a determination based on available information". But note, none of it says you will be denied; it just says you can be denied. That denial would now have to be based on something your employer said and only what the employer said.
If you look at states where the unemployment facts and figures are public record, (we'll use CA) of the cases where the claimant legitimately should be approved for benefits but were initially denied, only about 40% are based on the employer's statements. The rest is due to something the claimant accidentally said or said wrong. So 60% of the time the only reason the person was initially denied was because they spoke to unemployment. At best, you take the call but answer nothing until the interviewer provided details of the employer's response. This is perfectly acceptably under most state regulations. However, most people tipped the scales at the application stage where they wrote something about why they were fired and that released the worms before you even got the box.
Now, how do we know the rules. As an employer, I have to keep up with unemployment issues since I pay for it in every state (only 3 states have a cost share by employees). I also personally know a Supervision Administrative Law Judge who overseas all ALJ in the state who handle unemployment issues. We talk a lot. Others on the unemployment sub-forum work extensively with people off forum on unemployment and have documents covering multiple states. I believe we even have a former unemployment administrator posting. One person seems to have the completed federal unemployment regulations, guides, determinations, etc and has used those to get state rules overturned and claimants approved for benefits. States can play games with claimant because they think most are dumb, but they are no match for an intelligent claimant armed with knowledge.
Of course the advice is questionable. There isn’t a vetting process to post. We might all be 12 year old boys too shy to troll relationship sites.
You need to look at the poster and decide whether they generally give good advice or not. Rabritta seems to give knowledgeable advice about UI, but I don’t really know, as I don’t know anything about UI. I NEVER post on this topic because I know nothing about it. However, rabritta’s posts are comprehensive enough that you can use them as a starting point and verify things elsewhere.
Regarding notice, you will see a number of people advocate against giving any notice at all. Looking at their posts, they tend to be people with a hatred and distrust of corporations who want to take some small glee in sticking it to the man. They aren’t posting with your best interests at heart, they just want to see some manager somewhere get annoyed. Most of the people who say something like 4 weeks post reasons why they had to do it, such as small industry or leave payout restrictions. You are going to see most people coalesce around two weeks is standard.
My thought on this is two weeks is standard for most entry to low/mid level jobs. Once you get into higher levels of responsibility longer notices are generally expected and understood by both current and future employers. Regardless, unless contractual penalties exist, you are free to do whatever you need to do, and you should not jeopardize a job offer with a long notice, or stay long in a toxic place.
See how this works? Take in the advice, consider the source, verify the facts, modify to your specific needs, and make a decision.
Thank you, Rabritta. Makes sense. Maybe I have been lucky in the past when it comes to unemployment because in the few instances I've had to do it, the adjudicator seemed sympathetic to my case. Hopefully, the same thing will happen with the new case that I need to file. I'll be doing that on Friday because HR said they are going to put Friday as my last day of work in their records.
Exaggerating or lying on your resume is the same as when you do it in real life. You may get caught or you may not - but it certainly reveals a lot about your character.
LMAO, yes because employers are always so full of integrity and 100% honest with employees and candidates.
The reality is that if companies expect job candidates to be perfect, that is exactly what they will get whether it is true or not. You gotta do what you gotta do, honesty alone doesn't put food on the table. If I have to lie to get a job, that is what I will do every time.
What you should really be complaining about are the employers that have made it so hard for some people to get jobs that they no choice but to lie and falsify information just to survive. And I am not talking about criminals or people that have some serious issues in their past. Employers are rejecting people for being too old or having the bad luck of losing a job during a recession. Forcing people to lie just to remain viable in the job market is not a mark against their character, it is a shameful reflection on the employers and how they treat people.
LMAO, yes because employers are always so full of integrity and 100% honest with employees and candidates.
The reality is that if companies expect job candidates to be perfect, that is exactly what they will get whether it is true or not. You gotta do what you gotta do, honesty alone doesn't put food on the table. If I have to lie to get a job, that is what I will do every time.
What you should really be complaining about are the employers that have made it so hard for some people to get jobs that they no choice but to lie and falsify information just to survive. And I am not talking about criminals or people that have some serious issues in their past. Employers are rejecting people for being too old or having the bad luck of losing a job during a recession. Forcing people to lie just to remain viable in the job market is not a mark against their character, it is a shameful reflection on the employers and how they treat people.
Absolutely agree with you, Shorman! It's sad that some people had to take survival jobs and now, will not even be looked at for their real career path because they may have been working in retail for the last year or two.
A friend of mine was able to get a friend of hers who owns his own business to vouch for her. So, she put his company down as her current position and landed a great job! Had she not done this and kept her retail job on her resume, she wouldn't have even been called for a phone interview. She's a very trustworthy and reliable employee, but she did what she had to do to land a job and get herself back into her chosen career path.
I never claimed to be perfect (I am far from it, actually), but I have "never ever" "fibbed" on my resume. I've seen people get caught doing it, and I've known people who didn't get caught doing it. I tend to get caught and I'm not willing to take the chance and my actual experience is just fine.
Fibbing means different things to different people.
To my fiance, it might mean mildly exaggerating her role on her collegiate rowing team to imply that she "led" them to a championship when in reality she was just a member of the team. That is never going to bite you in the ass because nobody cares about the fact in question beyond you actually have been on a rowing team, which is true. It's just branding.
To my former coworker, it meant listing only the institution and the years attended under "education" in the hope that he could beat scanners and not have to reveal he'd dropped out of college after 5 years on the resume. That's not likely to endear you to a manager.
Actually, that is the best advice one can give regarding unemployment.
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