People who lie on CV/Linkedin

Good morning/afternoon everyone,

We recently had a desktop engineer who left for another job and I noticed on his LinkedIn profile he changed his job title from desktop engineer to IT consultant.

Not only had that but a previous employee who left last year made a recommendation for him on March 31^st claiming he had worked with him which wasn’t true.

I’m interested to know if anyone here has lied on their CV for a new position or “fake it to make it”.

I personally don’t think I would pull it off, just curious if anyone had or worked with someone who did.

Many thanks.

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Comments

Legacy User

Well I personally don't care if someone lies or not on linkedin. The only negative I see from that is that they will waste a lot of recruiters and employers time during the interview process when they are weeded out for not having the skills they listed.

paul78

IronmanX wrote: »

I know i'm probably in disagreement with a lot of people on here but I don't think the title is not all that important. The job duties are what matters. People on here will take a pay cut to get a title with a super cool name the fact that a company can make up a title and pay their workers less just seems silly.

I do find sometimes rolling my eye at people who have manager in their title yet have no one reporting to them.

I would agree with you. It really is the job duties that ultimately is most important. I do see same thing with software developers/engineers. Especially since I'm in fintech and some big financial services companies use generic titles mostly for ranking and pay grade. I remember a long time ago - one title that I had was Senior Systems Officer - basically it denoted that I'm senior-level, I'm an officer of the bank, and I'm in technology. I was actually a lead software engineer for a banking application and I did zero systems work.

I personally don't have a problem if people exaggerate their title - frankly because I don't really care. It's really none of my business for one thing. And if I come across resumes for candidates that I'm interviewing and they indulged in some marketing - if they are competent and they can do the job, so what if I was able hire someone that is good for the team. And if they are incompetent - they end up on my termination list - doesn't matter what they said on their resume or LinkedIn.

OctalDump

dmarcisco wrote: »

Well I personally don't care if someone lies or not on linkedin.

My view is that LinkedIn is public, so the lies are visible. Who knows what they say in private, on their cover letters, resumes, in job interviews? My guess is that someone comfortable lying in public is more comfortable lying in private. The attitude of non-confrontation in most 'professional' relationships means people rarely get called out.

There was a case of an unqualified doctor working here in Australia recently who had no complaints against them, in 10 years, but their colleagues didn't really trust them, knew they made basic errors, and would run their own tests or redo what they claimed to have done. None of the doctors or patients actually made a formal complaint.

So yeah, call them out. You might be the first one, but once that ball starts rolling... The Emperor's New Clothes and all that.

paul78

OctalDump wrote: »

My view is that LinkedIn is public, so the lies are visible. Who knows what they say in private, on their cover letters, resumes, in job interviews?

Fair points - For me it depends on whether it's an outright lie or simply an exaggeration or nuance. While I would question the judgement and ethics of anyone that outright lied (I.e. said they worked someplace they didn't, list certs they didn't have), I wouldn't care if someone said that their title was Network Engineer if they worked on networks but their official title was Technology Analyst.

Legacy User

Well I'm sure all of that resume padding is mentioned just like you say (cover letter, interview, etc) but now they are publicly letting people know about the deception but unless you personally know the person it is all hearsay. For someone hiring someone because of their resume regardless of the medium it is displayed without delving into specifics the fault is on the interviewer not the person that worked the system. That person who slipped through the cracks will be found out and let go I have seen it happen many many times.

I don't think I would be the guy to call out a coworker from the past or present about their profile unless if its directly effecting me providing for my family or if it may cause harm to someone like the Dr you mentioned besides that it really doesn't matter to me.

ImYourOnlyDJ

What about company provided over inflated titles? I've known some companies that had everyone labeled as a network engineer where out of ten network engineers only two were actual network guys (Cisco) three were systems guys, and five were basically tier 2-3 support.

Seems like every company throws out engineer titles to make people feel important. Just like at banks where 1/3rd of the employees are VPs.

Legacy User

lol When I used to be field tech to install network equipment I was told to go onsite and to ask for the Mechanical Engineer to walk me through the process. I went on site and the Mechanical Engineer was just the janitor who opened the door to the BDF because after he let me him he pulled out a mop/bucket and starting mopping the hallway. Thats when I realized titles don't mean anything.

Remedymp

ImYourOnlyDJ wrote: »

What about company provided over inflated titles? I've known some companies that had everyone labeled as a network engineer where out of ten network engineers only two were actual network guys (Cisco) three were systems guys, and five were basically tier 2-3 support.

Seems like every company throws out engineer titles to make people feel important. Just like at banks where 1/3rd of the employees are VPs.

There is article on LI i think about companies having unique titles for their employees to enhance their identity in their role. It seems to be effective. State Street bank does this all the time.

An IT manager anywhere else, is consider an Associate VP or something to that affect at SS.

OctalDump

Yeah, I think a little bit of massaging of titles is probably something that we can let slide most of the time. Especially when one company's Network Admin, is another's Systems Engineer. If your role description matches, then that should be ok.

There are probably cases where it matters. Like if your company is selling itself as having integrity and such like, and some high profile staff are being dishonest on social media. That puts the reputation of the whole organisation at risk.

Lying about qualifications, though, I think is different. I worked hard for (most of) my qualifications and certifications. If all you have to do is claim you have them, and you get the same benefit, then it's devaluing my qualifications. Basically, I'm earning less than I might be because some guy is lying about a Master's or MCSA and no one is calling them out on it. And as much as experience is king, qualifications still matter.

It also irks me working with people who have no clue about professionalism, cowboys that lurch from one crisis to another, don't understand basic theory and don't understand why you might want to follow a clear process and not just poke at random stuff until "it works", have no idea of the limits of their abilities or what they don't know. You know, the kind of thing that you might learn in that degree or certification you claim to have.

aderon

I think it's kind've hilarious tbh. It speaks a lot to their desperation and their inability to come to terms with where they're at in their careers. I've seen this personality pop up a few times and it's just crazy to me. Just be honest with yourself. Know that you're not where you need to be currently, but that you can and will do better in the future. Then do so. But it's so much easier to lie, and ****, and take short cuts, and they don't take enough pride in themselves to stay above all that.

The only time this ever bothers me is when employers don't do their homework and just take candidates on their word (Seen this a lot on lower level positions). Or when employers don't properly assess the employees skill levels in the technical interview. I'd hate to be edged out by another candidate in an interview process because they lied and cheated their way to get there and the employer didn't fact check or properly assess the candidate.

IronmanX

Back in February there was a bit of a twitter confessional against technical interviews

https://theoutline.com/post/1166/programmers-are-confessing-their-coding-sins-to-protest-a-broken-job-interview-process

"Hello, my name is Tim. I'm a lead at Google with over 30 years coding experience and I need to look up how to get length of a python string."
"Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so f*** off."
"Hello, my name is Erica. If I told you what things I still have to Google, you'd try to use it as "evidence" that I'm not a "real" engineer."
etc....

"“After drawing on data from thousands of technical interviews, it’s become clear to us that technical interviewing is a process whose results are nondeterministic and often arbitrary,” she wrote. “We believe that technical interviewing is a broken process for everyone but that the flaws within the system hit underrepresented groups the hardest."

I have only had 1 out of 4 jobs since college that I did not have to do a test for.

Blucodex

How about these two scenarios?

1. You are titled Security Admin by HR so they can justify paying you a higher salary but you are a server admin with very little to do with security. Do you apply for security jobs and parade yourself as a security admin?

2. You are titled by HR as a security admin but you do every facet of security. Architect, Engineer, and Admin. If your ex-boss is okay with it can you title yourself on LinkedIn/Resume as a Security Engineer?

NavyMooseCCNA

IronmanX wrote: »

I do find sometimes rolling my eye at people who have manager in their title yet have no one reporting to them.

My company gave me the title of "manager" even though I am an IT department of one.

DatabaseHead

paul78 wrote: »

I personally don't have a problem if people exaggerate their title - frankly because I don't really care. It's really none of my business for one thing. And if I come across resumes for candidates that I'm interviewing and they indulged in some marketing - if they are competent and they can do the job, so what if I was able hire someone that is good for the team. And if they are incompetent - they end up on my termination list - doesn't matter what they said on their resume or LinkedIn.

Great take Paul I couldn't agree more.

OctalDump

NavyMooseCCNA wrote: »

My company gave me the title of "manager" even though I am an IT department of one.

See, I kind of get this, because there's not really a good title for someone who is running the IT for a whole organisation. If you are the sole IT person, you are probably doing a bit of everything - systems, networks, voice, development, analysis, support, admin, engineering, architecting, partner management, contract management, procurement, security, IT strategy, governance. It's probably not in as much depth as you might in a larger organisation, but you are still doing it.

So even without anyone internal reporting to you, what else could you call it? CTO/CIO? IT Guy?

Replicon

volfkhat wrote: »

Yep, so if management refuses to work with you; that's when I'd go ahead and Lie on my resume.
Change your title to something like System Engineer IV. (or use "Senior" , etc)
and immediately follow it with all the design stuff you did in the details.

Then, start applying for legitimate Architect/Design (or whatever) positions.
Hope that you can land an interview where they grill you on the Technical Details; that's where you SHINE.
If you can land the job.... You Da Man.

I second this. Let say you pass the interview, most companies will do background check. When you send them your work contract where it says you are hired as System Admin but on your resume/LinkedIn you have put System Architect, it will not work. How will you justufy it. I have not much experience in this part but logically you will be disqualified.

YesOffense

Stretching the truth has never worked out for me in the past, i'm not one of those lucky ones. I get the full background and reference check so I stay above board even though i'll end up working with some folks who clearly fabricated a bit. It is what it is though. Only thing I may tweak is the title, some are proprietary and mean nothing to the recruiters so I make it more descriptive.

tmtex

We had a NOC manager, that's all she was. She quit got a new job, 6 months later her linkedin profile says she was IT Director. Not sure how people can get away with that

Nisseki

OctalDump wrote: »

Lying about qualifications, though, I think is different. I worked hard for (most of) my qualifications and certifications. If all you have to do is claim you have them, and you get the same benefit, then it's devaluing my qualifications. Basically, I'm earning less than I might be because some guy is lying about a Master's or MCSA and no one is calling them out on it. And as much as experience is king, qualifications still matter.

Exactly, all that hard work and money invested.

We had a few people lying about their certs here. I love catching them out, especially when they say it's Microsoft because I know the process and they don't.