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Comment by amyshelton | Hacker News Reader

I would highly recommend that you don't lie. As a person who has hired for several positions and who also has a good BS detector, a discovered lie is always a deal breaker. It puts your entire candidacy into question and you're resume goes straight into the trash can.

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I can understand if I was caught out. I have had experience (but no real-world experience) in ecommerce.

I'd be able to answer all your questions, deliver results, learn anything I didn't know in a few days.

Would it be that bad in this case?

Yes. I am currently hiring and have a candidate that is actually perfect for the job. I will not hire him. Why? Because on his resume he claimed ownership for some very impressive projects, and in the interview it became clear that he was in a very junior role in those projects. As my dad taught me, "Do not lie, cheat, steal, or associate with those who do"

It would be better to be honest about your experience, and if you feel you are lacking in some area, get some experience in the area you need while you are looking for a job.

I wouldn't lie about my role in a project. I'd consider that to be different to be honest.

In this particular example, I was looking for reactions for general skills as opposed to to specific roles within a project. My apologies, I should've been clear about that.

A lie is a lie is a lie, no matter how small.

Everyone lies. You lie - I guarantee it. There is such a thing as acceptable lying. You probably lie every day. If you have kids then you certainly lie constantly about small things.

The question is, for any individual, what do you consider an acceptable lie? What are your limits?

For me, lying on a resume is not acceptable. For others clearly it is fine.

A lie is a lie is a lie, in context, means that a small lie (i.e. claiming to know bash even though you never used any of the nontrivial features of bash) is not acceptable.

When you start hiring people, you will quickly realize how many people claim expertise, or even awareness, of languages / systems that they dont know about. e.g. everyone who has used awk '{print $1}' claims to be an awk expert. And its kinda sad that people see such small things as acceptable.

In the particular field I'm in (radio astronomy), I usually have two choices when hiring. 1) Hire someone with radio astronomy knowledge and teach them to be a good software engineer, or 2) Hire a good software engineer and teach them a bit about radio astronomy. My point being, you don't have to know everything. From my point of view as the person doing the hiring, you simply have to demonstrate a capacity to learn coupled with a well-groundedness in the basic concepts required for the job.

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