CV Lies – Qualifications
What CV lies can you get away with on your CV? We’re not advising that you should tell CV lies – just saying which CV lies you could get away with.
Except for possibly your first two jobs, no one ever checks on your qualifications. Therefore you can put any qualifications that you want. Even if they do catch you at your CV lies, all they’ll do is not give you the job.
There’s very little point in spending all those years at university, when you can just add a first in Mathematics with Economics to your CV. As for your A-levels, put in one B amongst the A’s just to allay suspicions.
CV Lies – Time Out of Work
There’s no point in having gaps in your CV.
Even if they take references, they’re not going to go back more than two jobs. Therefore, once the gap is more than two jobs old, just fill in the gap. If you spent 6 months at a place and then had a six month gap, just change that into a year.
Even on the off-chance that they do take a reference from that site, the people there will no longer be sure if it was six months or a year that you were there.
If the gaps are within the last two jobs, just say that you took some time out to go around the world and help UNICEF or someone like that. Employers like people who do this sort of thing
Current CV Gap
If you’ve been out of work for more than 6 months, it makes it that much more difficult for you to get a job.
Employers and Agents assume that you’ve been for lots of interviews and failed them all that you are unemployable. Therefore there is no point in having those gaps in your CV.
All you have to do is to find a mate with a limited company (any IT contractor at all), and put down that you worked on him or her for some project doing this time. They’re sure to back you up on the off-chance that they are phoned up for a reference.
You’ll owe them one, and will be expected to reciprocate some time in the future.
CV Lies – References
Don’t take any chance with these. If you have been sacked or your contract not renewed, or you didn’t get on with your client/boss, there’s no point in putting down their name for a reference. It is too risky. You never know what they might say.
Just give the agency or the client the name of someone you did get on well with at the site. Make it someone whom you know will give you a reference. The clients and agencies are not going to know the internal structure of a company and who the bosses are. They may know one or two bosses at a company. However, as there are many of them, they won’t expect to know them all.
The agencies don’t care either. All they want to be able to do is to tell the client that they have received a reference for the candidate. They normally don’t give a monkey’s who gave it. It’s just a tick-off on their list of things to do.
CV Lies – Skills
It’s no problem to boost up the amount of time that you spent using a particular skill that they have at a site. If you were there for three years, but only used it for three months, that’s no problem. Just put down that you used it for three years.
Agencies can check up easily on what skills are used at a sit., However, it’s difficult for them to find out how long you used the skills for. That’s especially if you have a mate giving you a reference and you’ve primed him up.
The most important thing is being able to answer questions on it at an interview, and all you have to do is swat up on that.
CV Lies – New Skills
Even if you haven’t had the chance of using those super-duper new skills at the site where you worked, that’s no problem. You simply put down that you have used the skill and then take a week’s course on it.
Don’t worry about how you might perform at a site using the skills. Those you are working with are unlikely to be the people who interviewed you.
In fact there is a good chance that you might not come up against your interviewers very much in the course of your job or contract.
Play up your knowledge of the skill at the interview, and play down your knowledge of it as soon as you start. Friendly people at your work will help you out. Go to them for help rather than to the miserable looking buggers who might grass you off.
Go to the contractors, in general, rather than the permanent employees. They’ll be happy to help you out.
Promotion and Better Money
Most of the promotions you will get will be when you go from job to job. If you were an analyst / programmer but mostly did programming (as usual), and you want a job as an analyst, play up the analysis bit that you did on the job.
You’re sure to have done a little. Even if you didn’t, you know what it entails. You can say that you wrote the specs that you actually programmed from.
No one will be any the wiser!
If you were an analyst who supplied specs for two or three programmers, and want to take a job or contract as a Project Leader, then simply say that you were a Project Leader / Analyst on your CV. They’ll hardly ever check. Even if they do, you can just say that you performed the role, although you never actually had the title.
If you were a Project Leader, put down on your CV that you were a Project Manager.
Once it gets to higher levels than that, they are more likely to check. However, if you wanted to take the chance, the odds are that you’ll get away with it.
Build a Career
It’s possible to build a whole career on simply CV ‘manipulation’. It’s possible to get all your promotions through this route. In fact it far easier, and far quicker, to go up the tree using this route than simply by working hard and crawling to the boss.
***This article is tongue in cheek and is not meant to incite people to lie on their CVs.
