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How far can you go in tweaking your resume? More employers are checking up
September 25, 2009

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The tough economy has job seekers recasting their resumes in an effort to stand out. In a growing number of cases, it appears the process is turning fact into fiction — or at least blurring the line between the two. By Julie Forster

A last job as sales rep magically turns into head of enterprise sales. A freelance gig becomes a consulting or marketing position. To cover up a gap in employment, years are listed on the resume, not months. And really, you were just four credits short of that bachelor's degree - might as well call it a degree.

With the nation's unemployment rate appearing to be headed to double digits and an all-time high ratio of eight job seekers for every job opening in Minnesota, embellishing the resume - or outright lying - can be more tempting than ever.

Even as employers increasingly hire screening companies to vet a broader base of candidates' resumes for inconsistencies, many job seekers are willing to take a risk.

"There's a sense of desperation out there," said Jeff Wizceb, vice president of business development for HR Plus, a Chicago-based employment screening company.

"Especially in this market, people are stretching their resumes, and stretching them not only in terms of past employment, but education," Wizceb said. "They're tweaking their resume to look closer to the job they are applying for."

He told of one job applicant at a large accounting firm who received a job offer to be a senior consultant contingent on a background screen. His resume listed an MBA from the University of Illinois. Not true, it turns out. Reality: He had attended the university for two years and took classes that had nothing to do with business. When the employer was informed of the false credentials, the man was pulled out of training in New York and promptly fired. In a presentation Wizceb gives to employers, he uses figures from the Society for Human Resource Management: 35 percent of all resumes are falsified and 70 percent of all applicants have information that is not fully accurate. "Given today's economy and the job market, it's only been getting worse," he said.

In analyzing its screening data through June of this year, the company found 28 percent turned up inaccuracies in employment history. Those ranged from never having worked at a place to changing the dates of employment, most likely to conceal gaps in employment.

For the same time period, for jobs at hotels and restaurants, employers rejected 8 percent of the candidates because of information HR Plus found, double the rate over the past two years.

WHITE LIES

Over the past several years, Orange Tree Employment Screening in Edina has seen an increase in inaccuracies on resumes in education and employment. In 2007, 33 percent of applicants had inconsistencies between what was on their resume and what was verified in a background screening. That number inched up to 35 percent in 2008 and 40 percent this year.

Not all little white lies turn into outright rejections. That's what job seekers bet on.

Employers will ask Shannon McDonough, an employment attorney with Fafinski Mark & Johnson in Eden Prairie, to sort it out. In some cases they question what a discrepancy says about the job candidate's character.

"They wonder what else the employee might embellish on once they get into the job," she said. "I do think employers are turned off when they contact a job candidate's prior employer and find out that inaccurate information was relayed on a resume."

Some employers will overlook untruths, depending on what it is and how badly they want the candidate. Lying about an educational degree is most often a deal breaker, said McDonough, who advises mostly businesses of 50 to 250 employees.

Sometimes, leaving something out can be as perilous as making something up.

Recruiter Rick Fox had one job seeker this year who was offered a job in building product sales, an area he had much experience in. The man listed years on his work experience and left out a nine-month stint as a real estate agent, not seeing any relevance.

When an employment screen turned it up, the employer, turned off that he didn't disclose that job, revoked the offer. The person, who had been out of work for eight months, was devastated, said Fox, managing partner of PrincetonOne in Edina.

When an employment screen turned it up, the employer, turned off that he didn't disclose that job, revoked the offer. The person, who had been out of work for eight months, was devastated, said Fox, managing partner of PrincetonOne in Edina.

The candidate listed a degree in business on his resume, which he didn't have, even though a degree wasn't necessary for the job. When the employer learned about it, the candidate was history. Fox was incredulous about the boldness. "I don't know why people think they can get away with it."

Education credentials are easy to verify. But accomplishments in former jobs are tougher to track because supervisors sometimes are reluctant to talk about past employees beyond verifying dates of employment and titles.

COLLECTING EVIDENCE

For that reason, Fox says it's critical for candidates to collect any kind of document that verifies an accomplishment. That documentation can be as simple as an e-mail from the boss: " 'Great job for hitting the numbers in August. Your team couldn't have done it without you.' Great. Hit print," he said.

Orange Tree Chief Executive Greg Mohn says that in preparing resumes, "people are really trying to make themselves out to be the perfect candidate." They'll try to match past job responsibilities and titles to what's on a job description and to compete against a talented pool of job seekers. "Sometimes that means altering your title a bit, or changing your job description."

Ken Webb, of South Minneapolis, was formerly a manager of order fulfillment for Plato Learning in Bloomington. For a time after he left the company in May 2007, Webb tweaked his job title. He believed the change, taking out the word "order," better reflected his full responsibilities at Plato.

"I wasn't suddenly saying I was the vice president or something," he said. "It was a pretty minor change. I just know from my own research that a fulfillment manager position can involve a wider breadth of job functions. I was never really happy with my title at Plato. I thought it was a narrow title considering how wide my responsibilities were."

During his five years at Plato, Webb's role had expanded to include planning for product launches and serving on teams developing products and platforms, acting in a business analyst role. " 'Order fulfillment' pigeonholes me," he said. "It simplifies what I did there."

Four or five months after changing his job title, he had second thoughts. Worried that an employment screen might pick up the minor discrepancy and knock him out of contention, he changed it back.

"I just felt like it really was such a minor thing," Webb said. "What was the point of taking a risk with that potentially hurting my candidacy for a job? I thought the risk outweighed the potential gain, even though it's a minor stretching of the truth."

He was right to be worried.

Employers increasingly are checking. Eight to 10 years ago, 40 percent of companies did a background check on their job candidates, Mohn said. Today, it's 80 percent.

"A good message is, you want to sell yourself," Mohn said. "You want to put down your best attributes but you don't want to be deceiving. It's a fine line." Julie Forster can be reached at 651-228-5189

Recruitment services provider PrincetonOne has headquarters in Skillman, N.J., and offices in many other U.S. locations. The author leads the transportation and logistics practice at the firm’s Indianapolis location.