Lie on your résumé? One job-seeker's moment of truth | Hacker News Reader

Lie on your résumé? One job-seeker's moment of truth

msn.careerbuilder.com

43 pointsjoeyespo58 comments

Great comments from 52 days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4312097

Yeah, I remember reading this possibly even earlier than that -- I am in the same position (sort of) so obviously it resonated with me. I can't understand why people would lie on their resume; but then again, I usually don't understand lying at all.

Lying is good.

You cannot live without lying. We all lie, everytime we open our mouths to say something. Whatever we say it's always biased, subjective, emotional (to varying degrees, ofc) - we, as humans, are simply incapable of comunicating the "truth", at least beyond very formal systems.

The only thing for us to decide is how much to lie on any given topic. Or what story to tell - it's really the same thing worded differently.

We do not value the truth. We value narrative, stories. Don't do yourself a disservice and don't make your story sound pathetic and uninteresting for the sake of the "truth".

In my country not too long ago there was a public debate about some very famous journalist (after his death) who used to (as his biographer insisted) put factually incorrect sentences and paragraphs in his reportages. He lied! There is evidence of this, and much of it. But there's a catch here: fragments of his works were lies, yet read as a whole they conveyed the truth in a stunning, poetic way which many hoped to copy but failed. The debate I mentioned was something along the lines: do those lies invalidate the truth he told? I'm very, very strongly convinced that that's not the case. Through his lies he almost touched the truth.

I'm talking about Ryszard Kapuścinski biography, if anyone is interested, BTW.

I upvote for your interesting perspective, but want to downvote for your conclusion. :D

I know it's controversial - the debate I mentioned in my edit was really heated in my country :)

To clarify: I don't think that lying for the sake of lying is any good, of course. It's just that we are incapable of not lying, so we can as well do it well and to achieve something good :)

  > It's just that we are incapable of not lying ...

You seem to be removing our ability to choose from the equation. Clearly, perceived short-term self-interest has its lure, but please don't frame this as if we must lie, or that the ends justify the means.

Not at all, we can choose! It's just that we choose between different lies, that's all.

I think we use different definitions of a 'lie'. I call everything that is not a truth, that is it's not 100% factually correct and 100% complete, a 'lie'. Are you confident that - outside of very narrow formalisms - you can describe anything 100% accurately? I'm quite sure it's just impossible.

EDIT: it seems I can't reply to jd and davidhollander just yet; I'll do it later, when I get home. I just wanted to say that I upvoted you guys, because your criticism of my posts is very good :)

> I call everything that is not a truth, that is it's not 100% factually correct and 100% complete, a 'lie'. Are you confident that - outside of very narrow formalisms - you can describe anything 100% accurately?

This is an unworkable definition.

A lie is defined as a 'deliberate untruth', not an 'incidental untruth'. To tell an untruth deliberately requires the preexistence of knowledge of what is true.

If someone knows nothing, they are incapable of telling a lie.

You're right and I apologize, I was sloppy in wording and left much of my usual argument out. Please read my response to jd if you're interested in clarification.

I think "100% factually correct" is reasonable, but "100% complete" is not. Is "2 + 2 = 4" a lie, because it does not also mention (for example) that 2 + 3 = 5?

Actually you can be 100% correct and 100% complete in mathematics. That's why I specifically said "outside of narrow formalisms".

My point was that you can't, even in mathematics; for example. the (ludicrously simple) mathematical statement "2 + 2 = 4" is, in some sense, incomplete, because it does not also state all the other true facts about addition (let alone other true facts such as, say, the current temperature). I think of Douglas Adams's description of the problem with someone who took utterly literally the injunction to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" (and so was still going at it, years later).

You recognize that the accuracy of a statement is a scalar, and that every statement is part truth and part lie (but often not in equal proportion). So then why obfuscate language by using the same word for a statement that's 95% true and 5% lie as for a statement that's 5% true and 95% lie?

You could do the same for morality. Nearly all actions have good as well as bad consequences and nearly all actions have benefits and downsides. You could then decide that every action must be called evil, because the downside of the action is nonzero. You'd also have to defend that position by stating that "Doing evil is good" (for otherwise we'd be paralyzed by inaction). Another person might bend language in the exact opposite way and call nearly every action good. Those people probably would use opposite language to describe the exact same ideas. How convenient!

You started the previous post with "Lying is good.". We, of course, have no reason to assume you have a private definition of lying that classifies statements we would consider true (or half-truth at most) a lie. Okay, now we know.

But hold on a second! If nearly every statement is a lie, then therefore we should interpret your statement "Lying is good." as "It's okay to speak if you're not 100% certain you're 100% factually correct". Which makes absolutely no sense as a reply to somebody who says "I don't understand lying", because that person clearly uses a more regular definition of lying. Something like "stating falsehood with intent to deceive". We know this, because if the other person also believed that nearly every statement is a lie then, of course lying makes sense (for otherwise we would not be able to speak at all except in mathematics).

> We, of course, have no reason to assume you have a private definition of lying that classifies statements we would consider true (or half-truth at most) a lie.

I am aware that it's my personal definition, but I thought I gave it right away:

> We all lie, everytime we open our mouths to say something. Whatever we say it's always biased, subjective, emotional (to varying degrees, ofc)

Sorry if that was not clear. Also, I think I have to admit the obvious: "Lying is good" was of course meant to be something akin to "linkbait", something which can kickstart discussion. Which it did, so I'm happy it worked.

(Before proceeding, please note that English is not my first language! It's hard to discuss these concepts even in my native language.)

Your "morality example" is almost exactly what I wrote a couple years ago in some essay :) But it's not really the same argument, the problem is that the "good" and the "bad" are indeed fuzzy, they mix, they're on the continuum, it makes perfect sense to say that something was more than 50% good and therefore it was good overall. This is not the case when talking about truth. If a sentence is half-and-then-some true and half untrue (@davidhollander, I'll try to avoid the term 'lie' outside of it's original meaning:)) we cannot say that the sentence as a whole is true. It is not 100% untrue, but it cannot be said to be the truth just because of that. At least I think so, am I wrong on this?

If I'm right, then "telling the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth" is impossible, which some of the commenters seem to agree with. And this is where it gets interesting, because I want to tell the truth! Or at least I'd like to transfer the truth I think I know to someone else's head, which is even more of an impossibility. I have basically two choices here: either struggle to maximize the amount of true (like in 100% true) statements in what I say, but this a) still won't make what I'm saying the truth, b) could be counterproductive, because while struggling to tell the truth I'll fail to actually communicate.

The second option I see is to lie. Given some knowledge about a person I'm trying to communicate with and some imagination I can craft a lie, that will communicate the truth I know to this person to the greater extent, than the previous option would. Moreover, I think that both options are really similar, in that they are not truth anyway and there is the same intent behind them.

So, when I say "lying is good" I mean that often a lie, deliberate untruth, comes closer to the truth than something you struggle to make as true as you can.

And this is a response I wanted to give to the person who "doesn't understand lying". In the face of inability to express truth directly lying can be the most effective way of communicating as much truth as possible.

I hope that this time I expressed myself clearly, at least as much as possible :)

Well then I redefine the truth to be anything that is not 100% false, therefore I can always tell the truth even when I am lying according to 99.9% of the population.

It is always good to tell the truth; the carefully edited truth.

Thanks for a good summary, can I put it as tl;dr on top of my post? ;)

Sure! There will be no copyright infringements or trademark duress.

This is called "fake, but accurate", and it's an attitude that troubles me greatly – especially in journalism.

Sam Harris wrote an interesting essay [1] putting the case for the opposite position - that you should just never, ever lie. I don't necessarily agree with him, but its an interesting and thought-provoking read. Its about $3 for the PDF or kindle ebook.

[1] http://www.samharris.org/lying

Seems very interesting, thanks!

That is called "radical honesty" (http://www.esquire.com/print-this/honesty0707?page=all)

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say, "Lying is good." but I also wouldn't go so far as to say "Always tell the truth." simply because it is not possible. It is literally impossible to tell people the 100% truth about your life, for the simple reason that all telling is choosing information to tell, which always omits something.

You MUST omit something, because otherwise you'd be telling your unabridged autobiography to every single person who asked you a question about anything. Obviously everything short of that is an information choice.

I think it's worth aiming at truth and not invention, but I think it's also wise to think about what information is going to be effective when sharing.

My wife works for a recruitment agency and lying in the resume (especially about work experience) happens sometimes. Why people do it? Because if you are not an expert on anything and want to break into sales or lower management, for example, your CV might compete with another 100-150 CV's. So you need to have some good-looking work experience in there, otherwise you are not considered for interview.

But it usually doesn't work, since she gives the interviewee very specific questions about his work experience, so the laying is quickly discovered.

I got hit backwards. My CV had PhD (failed) on it. I had had a chunk of good jobs, tried to start a bank, got nowhere, went back contracting in a dept with a lot of academic firepower.

After I had been there 8 weeks someone made a crack about 'all you doctors' including me in - and I said 'I'm not a doctor'.

'Your CV said you had a PhD' came the response.

Luckily I had my laptop at work with the original copy of my CV on it. I went ballistic, phoned up the recruitment agency, and finally got them to send a formal letter to the people who had interviewed me. I never did find out who 'tidied up' my CV - but a dodgy CV is just a burning fuse on a bomb that could go off anytime.

If you called your resume a CV, you are have way to lying abounding an academic already.

In the UK we have Curriculum Vitae. The term resumé is not used.

Was he actually a member of Mensa?

AFAIK yes

I would guess that he is. Being a member of Mensa isn't really a big deal.

What about having an IQ in the top 2% isn't a big deal?

It's not _having_ a big brain that matters, it's what one does with it.

The fact that having a high IQ is not an accurate measurement of the impact you will have on the world. There are plenty of people with high IQ's who don't contribute anything meaningful and many more people with "normal" IQ's who are changing the world.

It's true. A high IQ is like having a car with a lot of horse power. Its effectiveness depends upon how and where you drive it, and even then it won't be enough to get you everywhere.

Because it's a metric that doesn't wholly reflect what you have done or will be capable of doing in the future.

Intelligence alone doesn't make you special. I myself have a pretty high IQ, but for the first 20 years of my life, I squandered the time and resources that were at my disposal and now I'm 30 years old, still in college, and in a position that is way below my potential.

There are people of average intelligence who have created billion dollar companies because they worked hard, and there are geniuses who never contribute anything to the world. Hard working, intelligent people should be celebrated, not intelligence alone.

EDIT: Just to make sure I'm not being misunderstood. Being a member of Mensa isn't a bad thing, it's just not that big of a deal.

Didn't see any contact info in your profile.

Just wanted to say, keep it up. It gets a lot better if you keep plugging away at it. Was in your spot 7 years ago, finished college at 34 and life is amazing now. Good luck.

Thanks. I actually just landed my dream job yesterday, which I'll be starting soon. It's entry level, but it's in the field I want to spend the rest of my life in.

Agreed - and an IQ score is just the result of someone who is able to do well in an IQ test, not a mark of intelligence. I know have fiends who have "very high IQs", and are fully functional adults with full lives - but who would not be able to run a business, manage a team or even remember errands they are sent on.

They hold down great jobs, have phd's and are amazing in their fields, but in many parts of their lives you wouldn't consider them 'bright' or 'smart'.

You can also do well on IQ tests by practicing doing IQ tests, though I'd argue that this doesn't necessarily make you much more intelligent over all - certainly not for things that aren't similar to IQ test questions anyway.

IQ isn't a big deal, but neither is degree pedigree. He's making up for a deficiency in one signal by providing another, in effect saying "don't think I'm stupid because I didn't attend college."

If you have an elite degree and a technical major, you probably shouldn't include Mensa.

I don't disagree with the author putting it on his resume. I probably would have done the same in his situation (if I were clever enough to think of it).

The mensa application is not an IQ based threshold per-se (or at least, not anymore). They basically take any standardized test, and the thresholds are top 5%, not 2%. So mensa just means something like a top 20 school. Seeing the variation of output of even the better half of those schools, it sort of lowers bar for the "Brand Mensa". The 150ish IQ threshold (public imagination) would be a bit more strict in many regards.

http://www.us.mensa.org/AML/?LinkServID=005EB3F7-B83A-44BA-B...

> Being a member of Mensa isn't a bad thing, it's just not that big of a deal.

I argue that it kind of is, in that only 2% of the population qualifies for it. And the idea is that it's not something just anyone can change about themselves and achieve.

I agree that success is very dependent on many factors, and intelligence is not a required one. But it is correlated with success in many areas (such as intellectually or mentally-oriented fields) and it gives a good base line of potential. Like in your case, you say you are currently working short of your potential. I wonder if your clone, minus, say, 30 IQ points, would be able to say that.

It's kind of like being a fast runner (not a perfect analogy, but I don't need it to be perfect here). That will help a lot in some sports, it will help a little in some, and it won't in others. But if you can run the 100-meter dash in a top 2% time, that's a useful bit of information, especially for a prospective coach.

More than 2% of population qualify. This is a great interview question for any data analysis related job: Explain why Mensa's brand claims are false, then explain why you thought joining Mensa would impress me.

As I remember, they want IQ above 130, which isn't such a big deal if you are into math, logical puzzles etc. I did one IQ test myself and scored 135, while around 75% of questions were kind of small puzzles I used to solve on math competitions in basic and secondary grammar school. (Then there were also some tough questions towards the end of the test).

One of my university classmate scored "above 150", and that I would call a big deal - he has quite a sharp mind.

Wrong question. Why is Mensa no big deal? Because the demographic is high-IQ non-achievers. They like to get together and chat; that's all you know about Mensa members.

Funny how "mensa" is the feminine of dumb in Spanish. One would think these "smart" people would have done more research before picking that name.

It's from the latin for table. One would think you'd have done your research before criticising others for not doing their research.

Especially Mensans. Don't ever try to outsmart Mensans.

It's not just IQ, but one of 200 different tests [1]. For example, if you score an 800 on the math portion of the SAT, you're in.

[1] http://www.us.mensa.org/join/testscores/qualifyingscorefaq/

And an 800 on math requires comprehension of age 16 math, on a test taken as many times as you like before age 18.

Because it isn't indicative of anything. If all else was equal it might be relevant, but if you had to pick between someone in Mensa and someone who has shipped a product the decision seems rather clear.

Rather, intelligence doesn't correlate with getting anything done, nor does it correlate with being a pleasant person.

I got into Mensa in high school (sophomore circa 2003), but quit as soon as I had gotten what I wanted. The people in Mensa are extremely varied.

After high school I went to an engineering university, hoping to find a lot of bright happy smart people, and was amazed to find the sheer number of people who were intelligent but incapable of interacting with society or being productive. Great minds and personalities who were self-sequestered from the world. It felt tragic sometimes.

The part where you're an insecure underachiever who feels the need to join an elitist club based on having an IQ in the top 2%, really.

the fact that 2% of the entire world has one

It is top 2 percent "equvalent" scale score on any one instance of an intelligence or aptitude test, not top 2% overall, and that is a score that anyone remotely qualified for a relevant job would be able to do. It is entirely game able.

And it is douchy to boot. If you want to advertise your 1560 SAT, do that. Why send away for a Mensa membership and brag about that? It adds no value and shows you waste money and effort tracing meaningless tags. Are you listed in Who's Who in US Business too?

He said so, at that time probably not a big deal to put it on a resume. These days, I recommend against it, as soon as most interviewers I know see it, it's suddenly high noon on the whiteboard to prove the interviewer is just as smart as the Mensa person.

Edit: I'm not in Mensa, I've just seen how interviewers react to it. Petty sure, but I'm talking programmer interviews, people often look for reasons to exclude someone.

What I find amazing is how many just plain stupid resume lies people make. What does a 50-year old executive gain by listing a fake college degree? Nothing. (And it's not hard to unwind a lie, which you should do as time passes and the benefit of the lie approaches zero while the cost remains constant.)

I think what happens is that we hear about the sensational and embarrassing lies. This stuff gets dug up when the decision to fire an executive is already made, in order to reduce severance. If the lie is small and reasonable (slight title inflation) it doesn't much matter because that's so common, but if it's something immensely embarrassing like faking a college degree when he actually flunked out, it gets broadcast. Most of those public humiliation stories are cases of failed severance negotiations in which the company decides to be a dick and play the nuclear option against his reputation to get out of a contractual severance agreement (e.g. extortion against the fired employee.)

This is not to condone lying on a resume. I don't, but I think the public shaming that accompanies these digging expeditions is a bit much. When someone is shamed over an irrelevant resume lie, he's usually being shamed because someone (often the ex-employer) wants it that way.

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