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Keeping Your Resume Honest

As the job market gets more and more competitive, it seems that applicants are starting to spruce up their resume just a bit too much. Sure, adding a few extra tasks that you were responsible for at your last job or adding a couple of points to your GPA may not seem too serious. However, there are many who take this one step too far, and begin adding fake degrees, fake jobs and the like to their resumes. This has come to be called resume fraud and it is increasing on a monthly basis.

Resume fraud is a growing problem these days, and outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas says it could get worse as the job market gets more competitive. Experts say as many as 30 percent of all job applicants lie or distort the truth on their resumes, usually about education. The recent resignation of the chief executive of Radio Shack over faking facts on his resume is something we`re likely to be seeing more often.

Some experts say between ten and 30 percent of all job applicants stretch the truth or outright lie on their resumes. A lot of that goes undetected since only about 15 percent of resumes are ever thoroughly checked. As per many businesses, education is the leading area when it comes to resume fraud, followed by inventing or inflating job titles in hopes of getting better offers.