December 9, 2009

(Also posted on Workforce Trends, Nov. 23, 2009)

Edited and Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Published by Success Performance Solutions. Major Sponsor,

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What's Inside this issue of The TotalView:

1.  How to Spot a Fake Resume

2.  Perfect Labor Storm Warnings

3.  Quotes from the Hire Authorities

1. How to Spot a Fake Resume

(Previously posted on Workforce Trends, Nov 30, 2009)

Exaggerating your experience or job title on a resume and using your best friend, clergy, and neighbor as personal references on your job application used to be standard practice. Everyone did it and every employer knew it. Little white lies, such as exaggerating your role in turning around your department or ignoring a gap in employment, were rarely caught and considered fair game. As long as you didn't screw up in the job if hired, your new employer lived with the no-harm-no-foul rule. But desperate times calls for desperate solutions.

A series of new Web-based businesses, such as CareerExcuse.com, have popped up this year to help a growing army of unemployed workers provide fake work histories and references for candidates on the job hunt. Resume padding has morphed into a work of fiction.

Ripped from the headlines of CareerExcuse.com, the site promises to provide a career history, tenure, and salary of their own choosing. They then provide a "real" company with a "real" address with a "real" Web site with a real "800" phone number to close the deal when a prospective employer calls. Don't believe me? Just look for yourself!

How does it work? Joe Candidate creates a resume that he worked as a chief cook and bottle washer at a fake company for a few years. He inserts a totally false reference for good measure. HR responds by calling the employer and references to confirm the information. The phone rings at CareerExcuse.com, where someone will "verify" this information confirming the work of fiction created by the candidate. Of course, the former bosses and HR managers are paid by the candidate to lie...but how would the unsuspecting hiring manager know that?

Fortunately, most candidates aren't going to that extreme. For desperate candidates with a few scruples and a smaller budget, they might turn to FakeResume.com. FakeResume.com appears to be the do-it-yourself version of CareerExcuse.com. FakeResume offers a guide with tips and techniques that "help fill the gaps in your employment history....add experience to your resume...get fake resumes.  They claim to reveal "the main reason good liars get job offers and honest people don't!"

While the last statement might be true, it doesn't make it right. But who said life is fair? FakeResume wants to help "disadvantaged" unemployed workers, too. They want job seekers to know "The UGLY Truth About How People Are Outsmarting you!"

Over 53% of job seekers lie on their resumes. Over 70% of college graduates admit to lying on their resumes to get hired. Can you afford not to know the techniques, tricks and methods they use?

Many employers, especially small businesses, are just out-gunned and out-manned in this CSI-like scrimmage between jobseekers and job openings. Due diligence is really the key for employers in exposing the resume lies and false references. But the scarcity of time and the sophistication of the jobseekers is making it difficult for average hiring manager or human resource professional to do their jobs effectively.

But there a few simple steps every employer can take to protect themselves. Click here to read more.

Perfect Labor Storm Warnings   

Women make up 97.8 percent of all preschool and kindergarten teachers, 97.3 percent of dental hygienists, 96.3 percent of all secretaries and administrative assistants, and 95.5 percent of all child care workers.

For more workforce and hiring trends. subscribe to the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog.

Purchase the NEW Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 books (soft and hard cover versions) at PerfectLaborStorm.com.

Quotes from Hire Authorities

"Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, 'I have failed three times,' and what happens when he says, 'I am a failure.'
 
S.I. Hayakawa

 

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Save these dates! April 9 - 10, 2010

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Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.