Lying on your CV

[bgmnts]

Most people you know did it.

Most people I know like Ricky Gervais comedies and Britain's Got Talented.

[DistressedArea]

Started adding a zero onto my age. No one checks.

[grassbath]

I told the truth about my salary in an application recently, even though I'm very underpaid for the amount of work I do and what I contribute to the organisation.

My friend reckons I didn't get an interview because the employer wouldn't have believed I do that amount of work for such a low salary.

I'm applying for another job soon.

Should I Lie?

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's pretty normal to fib and bang a few extra grand onto your current earnings if they ask to bump their offer up.

Although I did have to provide proof last time and give my references before the offer. Most unusual.

[Ferris]

I told the truth about my salary in an application recently, even though I'm very underpaid for the amount of work I do and what I contribute to the organisation.

My friend reckons I didn't get an interview because the employer wouldn't have believed I do that amount of work for such a low salary.

I'm applying for another job soon.

Should I Lie?

Why would you tell them your current salary? Ask for 20% more than you make now, if they ask your current salary say you aren't comfortable providing that but that it is "in line with my experience and qualifications".

It's an information game. They're trying to get every fact they can to pay you less - don't give it to them.

[magval]

Only read the first two replies or so, so I'm sorry if this has already been said, but I work in recruitment and if you can't produce evidence of something you've stated you have on your application (particularly if it relates to something deemed an essential criterion), your job offer will be pulled. Have had to do this this week, and it sucks. Hope this won't happen to your bud.

[Bazooka]

Only read the first two replies or so, so I'm sorry if this has already been said, but I work in recruitment and if you can't produce evidence of something you've stated you have on your application (particularly if it relates to something deemed an essential criterion), your job offer will be pulled. Have had to do this this week, and it sucks. Hope this won't happen to your bud.

Shit we've been rumbled, leg it lads!

[Kryton]

I always tell the truth on my cv for this exact reason, well that and lying to better yourself is genuinely for twats.

Steady on American Psycho.

[bgmnts]

Steady on American Psycho.

If I could do one thousand stomach crunches though....

[Kryton]

It's dog eat dog.
The Tory way

[grassbath]

Why would you tell them your current salary? Ask for 20% more than you make now, if they ask your current salary say you aren't comfortable providing that but that it is "in line with my experience and qualifications".

It's an information game. They're trying to get every fact they can to pay you less - don't give it to them.

Asked for it on the application form.

[JarrowMonkey]

Mate of mine did it, from the last place he worked as a contractor he slightly altered his position in the company, not too bad as he would have got a reference from the made up position head of department, but he reapplied to the same company using the doctored CV, it didn't get past HR vetting

[Ferris]

Asked for it on the application form.

Write "N/A"? I don't feel sure any more, British HR people are like the fucking gestapo from the sounds of it. In my experience you can stretch the truth pretty far and it is totally fine. I wonder if that is because we have fewer worker protections so if a British company takes a gamble on you, they're tied to you more than we are.

[BlodwynPig]

Pancreas got a D at math..s? Bloody hell.

[Alberon]

I'd like to see more inventive lying on application forms.

"I was the king of Prussia between 1835 and 1904 and my mother was the model Uluru was based on. My pelvis has four extra dimensions than most people and my left big toe exists half a second into the future."

[katzenjammer]

I've never actually lied on my CV but since I only got a third in my degree I just put BSc (hons) and leave it at that.  Had an interview with a small company where the boss said, 'since I'm French I don't really understand British degrees, what does that mean?' So I replied that in the UK you can get an ordinary degree or if you do well you get honours, like I had.

[Uncle TechTip]

I got a D in Maths, this was because i didn't give a tin shit about the "open-ended project", they had us doing, drawing sweet wrappers that well-known maths exercise. I just failed to draw attention to it on the cv by calling it a pass and it hasn't held me back. I can do sums in my head.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Seb Cobb BSc (Geoff)

[Small Man Big Horse]

I got a C in GCSE Maths, but in my defence I missed most of the third year due to being mental (and in a mental hospital for about a third of it), and when I came back to school my Maths teacher was a welsh OAP who spent most of the lesson ramblings on about how shit the youth of today were rather than teaching us anything to do with numbers. The one lesson I do remember was when he started on the topic of Common Numbers, but then got distracted and started ranting about Common Girls, and how short their skirts were, and I got an erection. This however did not help me in the exam.

[peanutbutter]

Including grades sounds like a 2 page CV deal? the US one page resume format seems way better imo, there isn't this sense that you've to list every fucking remotely employable thing about yourself down, you can keep it lean and nicely formatted or dense as fuck.

Don't think I've ever had a reference checked, one job went through some but it was a few months after I was hired for a confidentiality thing I was taking on.

That being said, I've quite a lot of work I've done publicly viewable so it's possible they look at that and decide it's a waste of resources to bother with the reference check?

[BlodwynPig]

Glasgow uni asked me for all my grades (lecturer position), i told them to fuck off and they said the phd certificate would be fine

[shiftwork2]

Write "N/A"? I don't feel sure any more, British HR people are like the fucking gestapo from the sounds of it. In my experience you can stretch the truth pretty far and it is totally fine. I wonder if that is because we have fewer worker protections so if a British company takes a gamble on you, they're tied to you more than we are.

Interestingly, Ontario has some of the most worker-friendly legislation around and a smidge greater than that of the UK.  Quebec takes it even further.

[flotemysost]

I got a D in maths and sciences like a thick cunt so its prevents me from a shit load of jobs but them's the breaks.

D in Maths and IT for me. Re-sat Maths during my AS-levels for the benefit of the ol' CV and managed to scrape a C (at the expense of doing some other bollocks course like Critical Thinking for a year like some of my mates were doing, which I was absolutely OK with).

Got a job in IT later down the line - I doubt anyone gave a fuck that I failed at resizing some WordArt when I was 16, or whatever it was that we had to do.

The only time I've been aware of people being called up on their GSCE choices and/or results was when I lived with some Law undergrad students at uni; some of them had started going to interviews for internships at wanky law firms and were getting put through the wringer over why they got a B in Art and stuff like that. Even when you're 20-21, a decision you made at 16 seems like absolutely aeons ago, it struck me as a totally unnecessary and cunty move. Good induction to their future line of work though, maybe.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Write "N/A"? I don't feel sure any more, British HR people are like the fucking gestapo from the sounds of it. In my experience you can stretch the truth pretty far and it is totally fine. I wonder if that is because we have fewer worker protections so if a British company takes a gamble on you, they're tied to you more than we are.

Just walking flow charts, give them the inputs that makes their state change to no and you're in trouble.

[Looper]

Experience is way more sort after than a bunch of O levels and wot not. In my trade at least.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Also I think places that use laborious hr guff as part of the process, be it adherence to a strict set of requirements (yes i know it's necessary in some fields) or a laborious recruitment process aren't trying to find people who are necessarily amazing at their field or creative/innovative thinkers, they're looking for people they can assimilate into their corporate structure and not rock the boat.

[earl_sleek]

Does anywhere even check GCSEs? I know I don't, and neither does the recruitment department. I don't think I put my grades on my CV, and would be fucked if anyone did ask, as I lost my certificates over a decade ago.

I changed my last job title to something a bit more impressive sounding, but don't consider it lying as such, as the title I changed it to is actually more accurate and more descriptive of my duties and experience.

[Sebastian Cobb]

How would they get the grades anyway? Do schools keep them on site somewhere in filing cabinets? Mine was rebuilt so they might've got chucked. I suppose the exam board will keep them, but I can't remember who that is AQA, some of them, maybe.

I don't know where my A-Level and GCSE certs are. Probably at my parents because it made no sense to take them with me to university and I've not needed them since.

I do, have a folder of 'important' papers that has things like the lease agreement to my halls of residence, from 2005 though, and various scraps of car insurance/mot shite from cars that no longer exist. I should go through it all, but it's easier not to, innit?

[magval]

Does anywhere even check GCSEs? I know I don't, and neither does the recruitment department. I don't think I put my grades on my CV, and would be fucked if anyone did ask, as I lost my certificates over a decade ago.

Yes - we do. You can reorder your certificates. People appointed to teaching positions have lost jobs they've earned at interview over this. I can't stress this enough, don't lie about things that can be checked. Feel free to lie about things that can't. But statistically "true" information, like qualifications and the dates they were obtained, don't fuck about.

[kittens]

my cv is a tissue of lies. in that it is a list of made up jobs written on some bog roll.