Parlez-vous Francais? Oui? Non? If in fact your French fluency is more fictional than factual then best to leave it off your CV. In order to avoid a situation akin to the one experienced by Joey in Friends when it comes to light that, actually, his French is more balderdash than Baudelaire, it’s probably best to stick to the truth.
If you have lied on your CV, the truth is that you are not alone. The Higher Education Degree Datacheck conducts a survey every year regarding degree fraud and the results are shocking – roughly a third of people are economical with the truth when it comes to their qualifications. Amongst the CV charlatans, 40% improve their qualification grade, with 11% completely fabricating a degree. A survey conducted by CareerBuilder, discovered that 51% of employers would automatically dismiss a candidate if they caught a lie on their CV. Some of the strangest lies include an applicant who claimed to have 25 years of experience, the only problem being that he was the grand old age of 32. So unless he was a slick suit wearing seven year old, he might have been exaggerating ever so slightly.
Although acting as the Pinocchio of professionals might seem relatively low risk, from a legal standpoint, it is fraud. In 2014, a man from Manchester was jailed for perverting the course of justice, along with fraud, after landing a job at a biotechnology firm. He had secured the job after claiming to have an MA in Human Resource Management and would go on to claim £50,000 in expenses. When the truth came to light it did not set the man free. In fact, he was jailed for three years.
So embellishing your CV, while tempting, is ultimately inadvisable. Additionally, even if you can drink a gallon of milk in ten seconds, without taking away from the incredible feat itself, it’s probably better to leave that off too.
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