to ask if you have stretched the truth on your CV or a job application

[MaudeLynn]

Well, have you?

I am an old gimmer. Twenty years ago I had well-paid office job and jacked it in to become a "trailing spouse" big mistake Eventually returned to UK with DH and did a degree and qualified as a teacher. Became pregnant during PGCE so never worked as a teacher. We live in rural area and DH works long hours so became SAHM.

Am now at the end of my tether and need to work. Not much chance of getting into teaching so thought I would look for absolutely bloody anything office work.

I can hardly say that I have spent the past few years since DC started school driving them to after school activities and watching Escape to the Country

So I thought I might be a bit -ahem- creative with the old CV. Anyone done this?

No. I never would.

Be honest. Explain the skills you have gained through all you have done and experienced.

If you have QTS you can do supply.

No, i tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Could you do some volunteer work? Gives you something to put on your CV.

There is a difference between bigging up parts of your job and actually making up jobs.

No I wouldn't. It is lying and you could get caught out, not to mention also of course that it is unfair.

Have you done anything like pre-school committee / governor at school etc that you could put down?

I still remember someone getting sacked on the first day at my first graduate job because they had lied on their application about a GCSE grade.

Of course.
Isn't that the point?!!

I put myself in the very best light that an element of truth will stretch to.

I've had at least one job, where I've kind of blagged my way in then had to learn on my toes.

But I'm talking manual work, not surgery or astrophysics.....

If you want to teach, you have to be openly honest for safeguarding reasons.

There is nothing wrong with stretching the boundaries wrt to your actual duties, as long as you err on the side of honesty.

I've never lied, but slightly stretching the truth, lots of times. I think that's normal isn't it? To make your experience sound the best it can without actually being untruthful.

It's been a while, but certainly I've stretched the truth on my resume. Advanced conversational became fluent, etc.

You've got to be able to deliver, though.

Not applying for teaching jobs because it's 10 years since I got QTS so couldn't even get supply - too many newly qualified teachers to compete with.

Have you done anything like pre-school committee / governor at school etc that you could put down?

Erm no. I have spent a lot of time MNetting in Starbucks whilst DD at ballet but I don't think that's what potential employers are looking for.

I'm an accountant and I have to be able to provide certificates. It's a must in any job I have had.

I had a conversation with a friend who seems to be able to get jobs at the drop of a hat. Apparently her last one meant she was able to put "opens the post" on her c.v.
I nearly choked, been doing that in every job since I was 17, but never considered adding it to my c.v!
If something that basic is interesting to future employers, I dont think I will be changing jobs soon as I dont have the inclination to deal with every nitpicking minute detail of my past.
I have managed a team of 75 though with everything that entails from training them to appraisals. That doesnt seem to count for as much.

When I was young I'm afraid I had to be very creative with my cvs, in one case, just to get a waitressing job when I lived in Canada and every job asked for five years experience. Usually claiming that I'd worked on the other side of the country or world.
In the first waitressing job I got that way, someone came in the next day asking for a job and quite honestly said she had never done it before. By this time it must have been pretty apparently to my employers that I hadn't a clue about waitressing and was listening to her and regretting having lied. Well, they didn't give her the job, they kept the dishonest one instead (very strange).

I don't think it would be so easy to get away with that nowadays, with the internet and such like.

You're in the same situation as I am.

My advice, do a skills based CV rather than an experience based one. Google for the layout of this.

Don't lie. It is completely unethical and you will look a fool when you're found out. If you want to get some more recent experience can you volunteer for a bit?

Not really, I conduct a lot of interviews though and generally don't assume that because something is in a CV it is true. I always make a point of asking about specific skills that people claim to have and see if they can hold a conversation on that topic long enough for their claim to seem plausible. That's for skilled work though, that you can't just blag if you haven't studied/experienced it before.

It's better to focus on skills anyway in a CV, I can't speak for all interviewers of course but 20 years of experience in a job doesn't equate in my eyes to an expert in that subject, often it means somebody stuck in a rut and not really employable in any other role as they're so institutionalised. Assuming that you have the skills needed for the jobs you're looking for just make sure you mention those and where you've used them.

Don't lie on a CV - they are pretty thoroughly checked by anyone worth working for.

Yes, it's one thing to stretch your other interests a bit to make yourself sound more interesting. It's another thing entirely to be dishonest about grades or skills relevant to the job.
I had a friend who wrote bush pilot, camel wrangler and dead shot with a rifle on his CV. For a waiter job. Which he got, for sheer chutzpah.
It turned out later that he was indeed all that he had said on his CV.

Since you obviously enjoy houses - watch ' escape to the country'. Maybe you could have spent some time doing some house renovation or interior design as an interest that filled your time. As it's not a job no one will know that you probably only done a bit of decorating.

I've a friend who works for a well-known bank as an advisor. She's about 30.

I know for a fact that she left school without a single GCSE. She also did not do any further education at all.

Now I often wonder how she got the job without a GCSE in maths and English -I'd have thought that these were essential.

Was she, erm, creative with the truth? or didn't she need these qualifications?

A lot of trailing spouses end up effectively being their husband's PA, with all the IT and organisational skills that involves.

Why not market yourself as a freelance virtual PA? This means you can be self-employed, and as such, have no need to send anyone your CV in the first place.

See this article about how to set yourself up as a virtual assistant

I think you can be creative with the skills it takes to run a household, so accountancy for family finance, chef if you do the cooking etc etc but as someone up thread said focus on the skills you have and try to apply them to the job you are applying for. you could seek a back to work course or attend night classes and volunteering often leads to work and gives an interest for a CV. good luck

I've got a mix of that and the exact opposite problem at the moment! My field is very oversubscribed, partly because the whole industry is a bit pants at the mo so everyone with related skills are going for the same jobs - think over 400 qualified applicants in 24 hours for a very specific role.

On one hand you get things like "needing" a minimum of a 2:1 degree (so 20 years experience doesn't count?), requirement to be expert level in at least 4 different software packages, and at least 3 years experience in the last 5 working in a very specific industry sector. On the other hand, any gap over 2-3 months on the CV and they make the assumption that you must be crap!

If you can't get a glowing reference from the very last role you worked in then forget it, so I'm at the stage now (been out of work about 6 months) that I want to "lose" a job I took last year that really didn't work out and just have "career break" on my CV. At least that way prospective employers won't demand to know what happened in that job and make me relive the nightmare of working for that company, then assume that I left because I was crap and not because the employer was a bunch of entitled bastards with no concept of how the real world works and with insane expectations, who were driving me into a breakdown.