Honesty really is the best policy.
When we came across this study, it reminded us of that episode of Friends where Joey asks his good friend Phoebe to help him learn French because it’s on his CV, and he has just landed a role in a French play.
After several attempts of “Je m’appelle Claude” turning into “Je de coup Clow”, Phoebe gives up and sits in the audience as Joey absolutely bombs his audition.
Following this, she takes him aside and makes him delete everything from his resumé that was irrelevant or false and by the end he only had one thing remaining…
Clip via sirhc0102
It turns out that Phoebe’s approach has some merit to it and a study in Australia has found that if you’re lying on your CV, you will more than likely get caught out.
The research, commissioned by Australian recruitment company Robert Half, found that people who lie on their application are essentially shooting themselves in the foot.
Surveying 460 hiring managers across Australia, the study found that just over two in three employers had eliminated a job candidate from consideration after finding that they had dishonest or exaggerated information on their CV.
Most candidates were caught out on ‘Work Experience’ and 60% of those surveyed admitted to discovering that possible employees were lying about previous jobs they had held.
How easy was it to catch someone out? Well, the Australian director for the recruiter company, Andrew Morris, said that companies take their background checks very seriously and this has been made easier because of social media.
Okay, so we’ve chalked down the don’ts of your CV but what about the necessary steps you need to take that will get you noticed?
Morris said that having a concise, straightforward and easy to read CV, containing relevant keywords matching job criteria and candidates’ skills, are more than likely to get you a call up for an interview (if you’re being honest, that is).
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
