Top resume lies to avoid in the New Year

In order to get a job in a desperate situation or to increase chances of landing a better one, candidates may put false information on a resume – they lie or fudge details that can brighten their job prospects.

According to various surveys and research in the past, an increasing number of candidates are guilty of doing this. 

The latest one comes from www.JobBuzz.in, a website providing company reviews, ratings, salary and interview information, which highlights that fudging or falsifying information, either by oversight or deliberately, is one of the most widespread mistakes that job seekers make in their resumes.

Employers are aware of such practices and many tend to cross check employee details landing them in trouble. A good move would be to avoid this as we step into the New Year.

Majority (55 per cent of hiring managers) in the survey believe that of all the applications they receive every month, 40-60 per cent of resumes have wrong or misleading information.

And within the Indian job market, employers from IT, telecom, ITeS and dotcoms (80 per cent) believe they get the maximum number of CVs with false information.

Next on the list (70 per cent) are employers from banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) state that 40-60 per cent of the resumes they receive invariably have incorrect information. In addition, nearly 70 per cent of the surveyed automobile sector employers state that 20-40 per cent of the resumes they get every month are flawed.

The survey also highlights that it is the mid-level candidates (as said by 55 per cent of the surveyed employers) who tend to put false information on their CVs the most.

Almost 25 per cent employers say false or incorrect information is encountered regularly in senior-level applications while 20 per cent feel the frequency of falsehood is highest among entry-level candidates.

An industry-wise break-up reveals that almost 90 per cent of employers in IT, telecom and dotcom companies and 80 per cent employers in the automobile and ITeS sectors find information provided by middle-level applicants "extremely unreliable". Nearly 65 per cent employers in the manufacturing sectors say entry-level applicants state the maximum amount of dubious information, according to the survey.

Candidates’ top fibs

When it comes to lies, evasion of skills comes on top of the list. “Evidently, skill sets are the main areas which job seekers lie about the most. Over half of the surveyed employers say skill sets are the most lied about piece of resume information.”

Next on the list is falsifying job responsibilities as mentioned by applicants in the resume, say 32 per cent of surveyed employers.

Other common errors caught by employers include providing incorrect job titles (8 per cent), giving wrong dates of employment (4 per cent), stating improper contact information (4 per cent) and adding false education qualifications (2 per cent) to further their chances of employment.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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