Have you ever lied on your CV? Hopefully not, but plenty of people do. It can be tempting to enhance the truth on your CV but it’s never a good idea and the consequences can be quite severe. There are other ways to make your CV stand out, says our expert, Andrew Scorer from the CV Checker. It’s all about knowing how to sell yourself on your CV so you don’t need to lie.

If you’ve ever watched the Apprentice, you’ll know the format – each week, hopeful applicants face a new challenge and someone from the losing team gets fired. But alarmingly, in the penultimate week, what should have been the easiest challenge turned out to be the most difficult – the CV check and interview!

Five finalists faced guerrilla-like interrogators in pretty intense interview situations where their CVs were brutally scrutinised. Amazingly, it was discovered that one candidate had misrepresented her dates of employment, and another, her company’s takings. Whether these were genuine mistakes or not isn’t the issue: these embellishments – or lies – shouldn’t have appeared on their CVs in the first place.

Andrew Scorer is director of CV Checker and often sees these types of embellishments on the CVs that come to him. “We never condone lying on a CV,” says Andrew,
“but unfortunately you always get people who are going to try and lie. We look at it the other way and say that you should have plenty of positive stuff on your CV that sells you, so there is no need to lie.”

People lie on their CV for all sorts of reasons. Some of the most common ones are about university grades, or falsely claiming a working visa. Doctoring employment dates is another temptation. “People lie about their dates of employment because they don’t want to be seen as serial job-hoppers,” says Andrew, “but they always get found out. You often get a feeling about a CV that something isn’t right and it always comes out in the end. Either that, or during the job interview the candidate forgets what lies they’ve written on their CV!”

If you’ve had several jobs in a short space of time, there are ways to make it sound positive on your CV, rather than resorting to lying. Firstly, says Andrew, you should never put down the reason you left a job on your CV. “The purpose of a CV is to get you to interview stage,” he says. “If you get asked why you left a job during your interview, then you can tell them. But if you don’t get asked, then happy days!” You could also write a skills-based CV, where on page one you list the achievements and successes that you’ve had in the jobs you’ve undertaken. This is different to the usual chronological CV, where you go through your career history in date order.

Another common lie is that of job title. You might have been in your account executive role for two years while doing the work of account manager and yet your company won’t promote you. You might feel justified in elevating your status, but be warned, says Andrew. “If your CV is reference checked this will always come back at you. The right way to do it is to show how you’ve been performing an account manager’s role: so explain that you manage a team of people, that you think strategically etc. It’s not about manipulating the job title – it’s about showing what you’ve done as a manager.”

Another area where people might be tempted to lie is salary, but there are good reasons why this is not advised. “You should never put your salary on your CV,” says Andrew. “If you do, then you’ve blown any room for negotiating during your interview. You must remember that it’s your CV that delivers you into a job, so if you’re having an interview for a £45k job, it’s because they believe you can do the job. If you’ve already put a salary of £30k on your CV, the interviewer might feel you won’t be able to handle the increased responsibility that comes with a £15k rise.”

What about hobbies – surely no-one is going to check your surfing credentials (even though all you’ve ever really done is paddled along the shoreline on a boogie board in Cornwall?). Still not advisable – you never know who’s going to be interviewing you, so it’s always best to stick to something that you can back up. But don’t go to the other extreme either, warns Andrew. “Avoid clichés, like ‘socialising’ or ‘eating out’. In fact, you should avoid clichés in your CV altogether,” he says. “Phrases like ‘I work well under pressure’, ‘I’m hard-working’, ‘I work well in a team’ – recruiters have heard it all before because half the population put these things on their CVs.”

There’s no getting away from the fact that writing your CV takes time and effort – you’re not going to impress anyone by lying or using lazy, tired clichés. “Most people don’t sell themselves properly on their CV,” says Andrew. “Then they can’t find any other way to look good other than lying. But, if you can show that you deliver value and that you show initiative, then there’s no need to lie – that’s all employers want to hear.”

So, stick to the truth, but just word it the right way – simple really!

If you’d like help to make your CV stand out, contact Andrew at CV Checker.

Remember you can upload you CV to www.jobsite.co.uk at any time and we’ll start searching for your next career move straight away. For more careers advice, visit www.jobsite.co.uk/home/careertools.html.