Reply to: So....CV honesty

[Platypus]

The best way to list your levels of experience on the first page under a 'Proffesional Summary' is by using the following:

I do hope it's spelled correctly on your CV

[RichardCranium]

One of my colleagues, a gorgeous girl with a great rack, was looking for other jobs.

Wonder what would have happened if she'd got to interview.

Yeah. I wonder.

[DieScum]

I graduated in the early-2k tech slump. First couple of jobs were in call centres.

It was doing helpdesk support for French speaking countries. The staff were all low paid 15-20k young people.

The language skills were the most important thing so there were lots of French nationals living here or language students. Only a couple of people with IT degrees because it just wasn't necessary.

One of the exciting jobs we had to do was run a repair (literally just go to ARP and hit repair) on a MSI package with installed the tnsname.ora file when users couldn't access some Oracle dbs.

One of my colleagues, a gorgeous girl with a great rack, was looking for other jobs.

She confidently told me that she was applying for oracle jobs because the pay looked good and the experience she had from the above procedure. Unbelievably she didn't even know it was a database and genuinely thought she had some experience in it.

With delusion you don't need to lie.

Wonder what would have happened if she'd got to interview.

[Lockhouse]

I once blagged my way into a Java server-side contract with no Java at all except a 2 day foundation course. I lasted 18 months until the project finished. Where the welfare of my family is concerned I have no scruples as long as it's legal.

[Sysman]

How do you "100% honest" guys deal with stuff that you haven't used in a live production environment. Perhaps you've messed around with it in your spare time, or have some other exposure, but never actually used it for real.

Say all your contracts have been .NET 3.0, but you've been playing around with .NET 3.5 in your spare time ever since it came out and can easily fit into a role that requires it.

Do you include it on your CV or not?

It depends how thoroughly I went into it. Because I'm more of a sysadmin type, I might mention success with some horrendously complex product installation and configuration or experience with backup products.

I also might mention something like "Currently evaluating product X", but again only when I'm confident that I have done a proper evaluation.

Adding an extra few months onto a long gig to cover a wee road trip, in this case he was on one for 8 years 'in my mind' is no biggy.

The older stuff on my CV just lists the years.

[TiroFijo]

Yet your opening statement in this post, recommends exactly that!

I'm pretty much talking about listing skills which one clearly doesn't have or listing qualifications which again which one cleary doesn't have.

Adding an extra few months onto a long gig to cover a wee road trip, in this case he was on one for 8 years 'in my mind' is no biggy.

Listing skills that you have never used or places where you have never worked is taking the pi$$ a bit.

[RichardCranium]

How do you deal with stuff that you haven't used in a live production environment. Perhaps you've messed around with it in your spare time, or have some other exposure, but never actually used it for real.

Do you include it on your CV or not?

Not.

[Green Mango]

Maybe because recruiters automatically build in a 20% buffer when aprasing CV's.

Didn't last year's Apprentice winner blantantly lie on his CV...

Let me see IT recruiters want the perfect CVs with no gaps. Is it any wonder that engineers reduce those gaps and slighly embelish thoses skills. I don't think so.

The stories I've seem about MP CV's is that they've done exactly the same thing.

It seems to me that we will have a very slow and gradual recovery from this recession and that will mean that many IT contractors will not be re-engaged. In other words it will be the end of their careers. If a little white lie will allow you to escape that it seems perfectly permisable to me. I'm not talking about a big lie mind.

[centurian]

I also think, in this day and age of spin, CV 'padding' is not frowned upon as much as it used to be which is a shame.

Maybe because recruiters automatically build in a 20% buffer when aprasing CV's.

Didn't last year's Apprentice winner blantantly lie on his CV...

[centurian]

How do you "100% honest" guys deal with stuff that you haven't used in a live production environment. Perhaps you've messed around with it in your spare time, or have some other exposure, but never actually used it for real.

Say all your contracts have been .NET 3.0, but you've been playing around with .NET 3.5 in your spare time ever since it came out and can easily fit into a role that requires it.

Do you include it on your CV or not?

[RichardCranium]

I took the liberty of stealing your topic and creating a poll on it. I assumed you wouldn't mind.

My IP lawyers will be with you shortly.....

That's handy, I'll give them my invoice.

[Green Mango]

My CV is 100% honest, with no embelishment of any sort and so far its stood me in good stead.

But hypothetically if a role came up that you were 80% a good match for and you could easily learn the other 20% on the job with no problem is it a bad thing to put the 20% on your CV as something you have already done in order to get the role ?

Ever seen that film "Trading Places". Seems to me that film has something to say about why peoples moral compasses vary i.e. the more desperate you are the more your moral compass varies.

[Clippy]

I've never had to 'embellish' my CV so far and wouldn't do it.

Yet your opening statement in this post, recommends exactly that!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a dig, but I think you have highlighted what a lot of people do which is to stretch the truth a little.

I also think, in this day and age of spin, CV 'padding' is not frowned upon as much as it used to be which is a shame.

Similar to yourself, I clearly detail the level of experience I have with the use of good english but interviewers rarely see past the keywords of skills they are looking for but I aim to clarify at interview stage if this becomes apparent.

[mace]

I've seen loads of dickheads claim they are an expert at x, y and z, then watched them mess it up, and i have often been the one to clean it up.

Odd thing is many of these people earned more than me and seem to still get more time and respect from senior management than i ever got.

Maybes we should all just brush up on bulltulipting skills to mix it up with the agents?

Techies say it how it is. Politicians are never direct. When soft skills are mentioned, lying is skill no.1 with pretending to be very upset if somebody accuses you of being less than honest in at no.2.

[TiroFijo]

I've never had to 'embellish' my CV so far and wouldn't do it. The best way to list your levels of experience on the first page under a 'Proffesional Summary' is by using the following:

• Expertise with...
• Excellent knowledge\experience with...
• Extensive knowledge\experience with...
• Exposure in\with...
• Trained and certified in...

That way you give a good clear honest definition of all the skills that you have and others that you might have used either at some time in the past or on your own. The Exposure part would say just that.

If an agent calls me and sees that I have most of the skills bar one or two I say that yes I have not used this but I am very capable of learning the skill on the job and have done so in the past. I'm not only trying to sell what I've done but also what I am able to do.

The practice of embellishing CVs is used quite a lot by the Indian bodyshops in the US and I have had first hand experience with dealing with it. I was using an Indian bodyshop to raise invoices for me while I was n the US and they would market my CV for me. I sent my CV to their marketer and the guy sent it back for to me to see if I liked the changes he had made to it. The guy had added a bank to my CV stating that I had worked at said bank for two years! I quicky re-sent my old CV back to him and told him in no uncertain terms could he modify it!

This practise is very common among Indian bodyshops where I would say that at least 50% of their CVs are made up. I would assume it is the same here in the UK?