Pinocchio’s Resume

I’ve probably seen more resumes in my time than should be allowed under the Geneva Convention. Some were over the top impressive, while many others were, how shall I put it, “creatively” drafted.

That is to say, some of the magnitude and responsibilities of past positions may have been ever so slightly exaggerated.

Not to sound too judgmental, because we’ve all done it a time or two or three – but usually within reason, not fantasy land.

Case in point, one candidate I interviewed for a technology editor post, claimed to have been an IT specialist at her previous employer. Turns out, her IT “specialty” was scanning thousands of pages as the company made the transition to a paperless format. No installations or troubleshooting. She didn’t even know what VPN stood for.

Another claimed to be a former copywriter with a fairly high end ad agency on Madison Avenue. Turns out he was employed at the one agency where I actually knew one or two mid-level folks who explained that the only creative writing he did was when he took down the senior staff’s coffee and lunch orders.

The other day I stumbled upon an online post that listed some egregious examples of truth-challenged resumes, not the least of which was that of a son who just happened to have been christened with the same name as his father, and who listed pop’s background work experience and not his. In the same vein, an applicant who was in his early 30s and apparently rusty with regard to simple arithmetic, listed nearly a quarter century of past employment.

Not too many 7-8-year olds that I’m aware of don a suit and tie and go off into the corporate world.

Then there are those head-scratching entries people list that are so easy to check you have to seriously wonder what planet they’re on, such as the person who claimed to have won a gold medal in the Olympics. If they had just stopped to think for a moment and instead state that they made it as far as the Olympic Trials but lost, it would have been so much harder to verify and still impressive nonetheless.

Some other gems:

• One applicant claimed to be an assistant to the Prime Minister of a foreign country, which as it turned out, didn’t have a prime minister;
• Another listed three jobs in the past three years. A call to the respective HR departments revealed he worked exactly two days at one company, one day at another and none at the third;
• And finally the dolt who filled out two applications to the same company listing different work backgrounds – I’m certain that didn’t raise too many red flags.

Trust me I can’t make this stuff up.

But apparently others have no problem doing so.