Can you separate fact from fiction?

May 1, 2006 12:00 AM, By M. Richard Vinocur

Vinocur's Perspective

The New York Times recently ran an article asserting nearly half of all job applicants lie about work or academic history on their résumés. A study by the Society of Human Resource Management, a trade association in Alexandria, VA, found that 44 percent of 2.6 million respondents said they had misstated their work experience. Despite those statistics, résumés continue to be an invaluable tool both for job applicants and employers.

Those little white lies
After graduating from college in 1956, I prepared my first résumé. Even though we were in the midst of a mild recession, I thought my credentials would land me a job quickly. I had been sports editor of the daily newspaper at Ohio State University, and I also served as a stringer for the Chicago Tribune and CBS. All were paying jobs. I also was an intern on the sports desk of the Columbus Citizen. But as I sent out my résuméand visited several employment agencies, I was told that most employers were looking for candidates with at least two years’ experience. Being a creative person, I simply changed my birth date, making myself two years older, while changing my internship at the Citizen to a two-year, full-time job. I crossed my fingers and hoped employers wouldn’t check those white lies. Within a week, I had a job as an associate editor on three trade publications at a whopping salary of $65 per week. (Ironically, the company, R.H. Donnelley, called the bursar at OSU but not the Citizen.)

That fiction came back to haunt me 22 years later when I applied for a position with Technical Publishing, which had evolved out of that same R.H. Donnelley division. By then I had a track record in publishing, and instead of a résumé, I had a presentation. It contained financial statements from magazines I had published, charts and graphs illustrating growth, and letters I had received over the years from vendors, readers and advertisers. I got the job.

Coming full circle
Several days after I was hired, the president, Jack Abely, who had been a salesman on the first publication I edited, and the personnel manager, Fern Virdo, who was still working with the company, visited my office. “There seems to be a discrepancy between your first résumé and your current application,” they stated. I had to confess, so I spilled the beans. “I lied about my age. I’m two years younger than you thought,” I explained. (Remember, this was before computers populated offices the way they do today. What was amazing to me was the fact they still had my 22-year-old résumé at their fingertips.)

Whenever the company acquired a new property or I was given a new unit to manage, the first order of business was to ask all current employees for their résumés and job descriptions. I reviewed all of their credentials as if they were new employees.

In one of these exercises, the top salesperson on one of our publications brought in his résumé. I studied it closely and saw he had attended the University of Dayton and received an MBA from Notre Dame. I asked how an Easterner ended up in Dayton. “I love college basketball,” he told me. I noticed that he had no degree listed from Dayton, and questioned him. He told me he had transferred to Notre Dame. A light when on in my head, and I asked him if he really had an MBA from Notre Dame. “Don’t lie to me. I’m going to check it out,” I warned. He had, he told me, created one of those “white lies” to make his credentials more desirable.

Truth-finding tactics
As you sift through incoming résumés, separate fact from fiction, interview candidates and make your selection, be sure to confirm and verify each and every line on that résumé. In today’s litigious society, it’s tough to get the straight dope from a former employer, but the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act allows employers to verify everything on an applicant’s résumé. According to the New York Times article I mentioned, many managers run simple background checks on the Internet before the hiring process concludes. On rare occasions, a company will retain a screening company to verify a résumé even after an employee has been hired.

Quoted in the article is Barry Liebling, president of Liebling Associates, a management consulting firm in New York City. He says, “A résumé can be attention-grabbing, startling, interesting, intriguing, provocative, entertaining, wry, amusing or funny. But all of that means nothing if the content isn’t real.”

It’s interesting to note that I’ve never written about résumés in the past. After starting this column, I read a letter to the editor regarding fictional résumés. Written by a small business owner who had hired an employee who lied on his résumé, the letter suggested the federal government legislate against people who aren’t completely honest when providing documentation. I think that’s a bit extreme. The answer is to verify and double-check an applicant’s credentials.