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?

Loads of people enhance their CVs. Its not like you never worked there. They're not going to check exact dates from 8 years ago.

You're not going to get 10 years imprisonment for saying you worked at a company for 12 months as opposed to six. The police wouldn't be involved in something like that! That's for serious crimes like saying you're a surgeon when you've only got 1 gcse in home economics.

You don’t need to state months just the year, and as someone else mentioned skills and achievements. It doesn’t necessarily reflect badly if you were only there for 6 months if it wasn’t the right cultural fit or other, a good justification. What may happen if you lie is that someone knows someone that worked there, and you end up caught out.

Other jobs will come along, if it doesn’t work out with this one.

It’s a criminal offence. It’s called obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception. Don’t do it.

They won’t check believe me. They only check last employment - everyone makes up crap at interviews. I’ve never lied but I’ve been in the same job 22yrs so not needed to but they definitely won’t check so do what you need to do I say. Good luck!

I work in recruitment and hiring managers will often get informal references from their network if they know someone who worked at the company at the same time as the candidate.

@stepkidscopingstrategy

'get creative'

Maybe add to your CV that you invented the light bulb...

Do you say don't do it because its too risky or morally it's bad? Or both?

Both. Someone more qualified is losing out if you lie. Added to which if the experience is that important, and you don't have it, you'll be shit at your job.

My field is small, someone always knows someone and I wouldn't want to be looking over my shoulder the whole time.

I agree with this. No one is going to check the finer detail of a role you did 8 years ago.

And to the people saying she might be found out by other staff members who used to work at the same place - how exactly would that happen? I don’t remember how long people worked in my office 8 years ago.

Do it OP. Everyone exaggerates on their CV.

This is true, but it was 8 years ago. They’re not going to remember if she was there for 6 month, 9 months or a year. They just won’t.

Dispensing medication? And you didn't pass GCSE Maths?

Fuck.

Everyone exaggerates on their CV.

Why do people insist on saying this sort of thing. Dishonest liars always think everyone is at it. Same as cheats. But no, some of us don't lie on our CVs and never have.

Perfect! Not actually lying are you?

You should list them newest to oldest though.

I interviewed someone a few weeks back and they worked at my previous company in the same job role as me. When I asked about the salary he lied and added nearly £15k more than he was earning and said he expected more in the job I was interviewing him for. Needless to say the interview was over pretty quick after that and I double checked his salary claim with someone I know who was working there and he was definitely lying. Moral of the story is you never know where others have worked or who they know so be very careful.

It's unfair to ask people their current salary because you should pay them what they're worth, not as little as you can.

OP if it really is your dream job, apply for it without lying. If you don't get it, go and get the experience instead.

I would definitely be a bit economical with the truth - l was at a job for 3 months but made it look longer when l went for a similar role- l knew l could do it with my eyes shut but didn't want to look like a job hopper

It seems obvious to me that you actually only have six months experience doing the role you’re applying for, and that six months experience was eight years ago or you wouldn’t feel the need to lie about it.

There’s no way you wouldn’t stand a chance at getting the job if your experience was more recent, because it would be your most recent experience that would be taken into account.
And, what were you doing for the year you want to lie about that you don’t want to declare?

No employer asks for eight years experience in an industry, most ask for ten years employment experience, but that doesn’t have to be in the industry you’re applying for.

This isn’t just about making up a few months, there’s clearly something you want to hide.

It's tempting. Depending on the company you may have to prove contacts with each company and confirm dates. I would say that's unusual, but for a financial services company I had to go back 5 years. As I'd had a career break and done a number of different things I sent copies of my HMRC records which were accepted.

@MySugarBabyLove I don't really understand your message. I was working in a creative role for a type of company, it was a disaster because my boss was a bully, I left to do the same job for another company. On the JD of this new job it says "must have worked at XXX type of company before" which I have but it was a short amount of time and to get to interview i wondered about extendinf that time period. Are you implying I'm trying to hide something else?

I’m in the don’t lie camp.

My role is non technical, and most of my bosses have been too busy in the pub to think about checking people's CV in the past.

I really don't think I'd get caught. Unless someone who works at the new place used to work at the other place. That would be an issue.

But morally I'm interested that most people would not do it anyway.

Your example of just putting years is fine.

Putting Feb 2018- August 2019, when you started in Feb 19 is not fine.

I leave months of CV so if I wrote 2022 they would only know how long if they asked and then don't lie

I don’t think there is much point in lying. If they are looking for a particular type of experience from a particular company - they will go for the candidate who is doing that kind of job now. Having done it 8 years ago is unlikely to get you on the interview shortlist.