You’ve been making cold calls, sending off CV’s, and submitting applications all over the place and have little or nothing to show for your effort. The job you want and deserve – the one you know you can do if only someone would give you the chance – is tantalisingly always just out of reach. You are beginning to lose hope.
Why? Why is this happening?
What if the reason is that there is something on your CV or in your past that is causing you to get turned down? Maybe your qualifications don’t quite measure up. Perhaps if you just ‘adjusted’ your CV a bit in terms of exams passed or jobs held down in order to get the job, it wouldn’t hurt now, would it?
It would only be a small lie. No-one need ever know and, anyway, you are confident that you can do the job if you get it and that’s all that matters. It seems so unfair – you need the work and some minor detail is getting in your way. If you just made one small change …
It’s that ‘if’ word that does all the damage. ‘If’ is probably the most common word used in white collar crime because, and don’t fool yourself, crime is what this is. People tell themselves:
“I didn’t think it would matter IF…”
“IF I were to just …”
“IF no-one looks at …”
… and so on.
‘IF’ is the start of a long slippery slope that leads to a place that you do not want to go.
The problem is that you will never know when to stop. For example, what happens if you tell a lie on your CV and still don’t get the job you deserve? Will you undo the lie and put your CV back to what it was or will you tell an even bigger one? Most people will opt for the latter – welcome to the seamy side of human nature. Once you’ve started being dishonest, you just keep going. You’ve now become addicted to lying.
Even if you do get away with it, you’re not safe and never will be. You will spend the rest of your working life not being quite certain, dreading the moment the boss says, “Can you come in my office now please?”
Worse still is if you claimed experience and knowledge that you don’t have. Do you really think that you can bluff your way past your ignorance? You may have seen some film on the telly where it was funny how the guilty party (maybe the guilt was accidental) drifted from one crazy situation to another, always somehow getting by. It isn’t like that in real life. You will get caught, you will get bawled out and you will feel about half an inch tall and the boss won’t be laughing.
Right about then is when you get the sack. Now you have something new to lie about. That is, if you’re lucky – ask Rhiannon Mackay about luck.
Rhiannon Mackay wanted to get a job with the NHS but her references and qualifications were not up to it. In order to get around this, she lied about both and also faked a discharge certificate from the Royal Navy where her boyfriend worked as a Chief Petty Officer.
Her bogus credentials worked and she accepted the job offer. Unfortunately she discovered that merely lying was not good enough. Ms Mackay’s standard of work did not match the level of experience and qualifications that she had claimed on her application and her boss decided to investigate. After about 12 months in the post, she was compelled to confess to the lie and was dismissed. At this point the NHS decided to make an example and pressed charges against her for making a false instrument.
She was tried at Plymouth Crown Court where she pleaded guilty. Her solicitor claimed that she was suffering from depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but she was nevertheless sentenced to six months in prison for fraud.
For more about the story, read this.
The article also states that The Chartered Institute of Personnel think a third of workers lie on their CV.
Now Ms Mackay has something new on her CV to worry about – make sure you don’t go the same way.
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