To lie on my CV?

[MumOfTwee]

My perfect job has come up. Its asking for experience at a certain type of company. I do have that experience but only was there for 6 months and left because my boss was hell on earth. AIBU go stretch out that 6 months to say a year/18 months?

No real way to check unless someone on the hiring panel knows someone who used to work at the other place, but even then it's three jobs ago so can't imagine they would check

I work in a creative industry so I'm not saving lives or doing anything specialist that would mean exaggerating experience might have any risks

Do people do this all the time?

I don't think I've worked anywhere where the HR team would spend any time trying to get info on someone's CV once they were in the job. Unless they weren't up to the job maybe. But my HR teams are too busy dealing with actual issues than investigating employees CVs for accuracy...

Not for a job 8 years ago!

You don't need to lie to make it look like you've been there longer. Say you worked there for 6 months from November 2017 to June 2018, you can just put 2017-2018 next to the job.

As long as you do the same approach for all your other jobs your fine!

The problem with lies is that you carry them with you for ever - and that you have to remember to get your story right for ever.

If you cannot find a way to "talk up" your 6 months relevant experience at interview, then you probably do not deserve the job anyway!!

I work daily with (overseas) people who are now pretty open about how they lied to get their professional UK NHS jobs. If the HCPC don't check, I'd bet your potential employer won't.

5-10 years ago, I'd've been as 😲 as others on here; but, recent experience has taught me that get away with what you can.

No one will check. They absolutely won't.

As someone noted above, it's a small world and people know people. I randomly check with friends when I get applications if the applicant says they've worked where my friends work. Much better way to know what the applicant is really like.

If that is the only time you have worked in the required industry, it makes it more likely they will check if there are any connections.

They wouldn't go that far back if all your jobs had been in the same but you would be playing with fire, and would be dismissed if it came out (even if you were doing an on job, lying us not a quality most companies want)

@Mischance it's the getting to interview bit I'm worried about. Once I've got to interview I'll be fine because I've got the right knowledge. I just don't want to put them off with a weirdly short time at that particular company as it has a very good reputation and I left v quickly so that looks rubbish. I wish I had stuck it out longer

Lots of you more honest than me. I am going off the idea!

Oh and I should have said, it's not HR that tends to catch people out here because they will only focus on references. It tends to be hiring managers using their connections for informal 'should I bother' chats or colleagues during the course of casual conversation, particularly if there is cross over/lots of staff movement

I won't stand a chance if I say I was only there 6 months

This is why you can't lie.

It's too relevant to the role - if having more than 6 months experience is this crucial, you cannot lie about it.

I interview people regularly. You would be amazed at the connections I've spotted, that the applicant could have no idea about, that would turn an innocent enough scenario into something problematic. Eg assuming you knew someone who worked there at the time you did, or that you worked on x project given the dates.

No, you might not get found out. But it's a shitty way to start a career.

(And it won't be HR that find out. It'll be someone interviewing you or working with you).

At my company they have decided to do an audit of staff records and are confirming employment records for every employee for the 10 years prior to joining the company. This is because another company was caught out by a member of staff lying about his employment history which caused much embarrassment. The reason he was caught out was due to an external audit. Not worth lying in my opinion.

Cross-post with @Ketchupwee !

Not all worlds are small. It completely depends what the line of work is.

My (a particular frontline health care profession- I'd tell you but I had a stalker 😳 on here 7 years ago so I don't supply key words) profession IS small, but we've had plenty of sub-standard staff being taken on by other health-care trusts, when they 'move on' from us. I'm not suggesting the OP is substandard!- but the deal is to get the gig.

Many who go 'Oh no! We'd CHECK!' (Meaning 'surely SOMEONE is!!') are delusional. It's a bums-on-seats game, more or less everywhere in our post-Brexit economy.

@Fordian

It's not about checking. A very significant lie (tripling your period of experience!) will come out in how the applicant answers questions or similar.

It is highly unlikely OP as the experience she believes she has in 6 months working somewhere.

It destroys her reputation if she is found to have lied.

Just put years on your CV instead of months and years.

I'm stunned any industry has the money and manpower to DO that! I mean, I get if you have some serious underperformance doubts, based on suspicion around qualification, you need to go looking for sackability, yes; but just as an exercise??

I'm genuinely interested.

Just take dates off your CV. Some places ask you to do that to avoid ageism anyway.

I was interviewing someone 2 weeks ago who claimed to have held a specific role at a company some years before. I casually checked the time scale they said they were there and they repeated the lie. I knew it was definitely a lie because I had worked there for a long time, in the very same department they had claimed to have run! They seemed capable but I didn't employ them because I wondered what other fake claims they'd made on their CV.

So if the CV said

BT: project manager: 2016 - 17
Pepsi: senior project manager: 2017 - 2021
Tesco: senior project manager: 2021 onwards

(Made up places and roles of course)

That would be fine? Wouldn't someone ask how long the BT stint was for if BT was the most relevant on that list?

I'm really over thinking this but this job would make my life so much better!

Wouldn't someone ask how long the BT stint was for if BT was the most relevant on that list?

No they wouldn't ask.

They'll ask about your abilities and experience, and your 6 months may be sufficient.

If iou genuinely worked there over two calendar years eg Nov 2016 - March 2017, it's fine to put 2016 - 2017 (tho I'd actually put months myself).

Did you not go to another job immediately after (or did I miss that?) - so will putting a longer date then not make sense?

Is even a year of experience 8 years ago going to be relevant anyway?

ime no one is going to check this shit and if you’re doing a good job once they found out they will not give a damn.

if you’re doing a good job once they found out they will not give a damn.

Most organisations will care.

Whether you would get away with it is likely to depend on the type of company you are applying to OP. In my company (large co) they check every single detail on a CV and keep digging for a long time to do so - I had to let a lady go after she had been with us for a couple of months when they discovered that she had changed the mark on one paper of her degree (so not the class of degree but the mark for one of the papers making up that degree). She didn't even need to include that mark on her CV but because she had and had changed it that was considered dishonest and the company won't keep anyone that is dishonest. So be careful if you are leaving a job to go to another that may then fire you down the line for a 'small' lie.

You shouldn’t lie, but pretty easy to fudge- just put year(s) you worked. Even better if spans 2 calendar years : sept 2012 - feb 2013 becomes 2012-2013.

more important will be your ability to speak to that experience in the interview.

Depends how small a world the field is. I interviewed someone who was great in the interview and their CV said that they had six months of work in the field, but a few years ago, so had not included that boss as a reference - I knew the boss and spoke to them informally - they told me that the person had worked there for one day and never came back. Needless to say, they didn't get the job.