I have noticed an unusual percentage of professional CVs/work histories/resumes on LinkedIn (specifically) that have some fairly blatant errors in them.
For example, I have seen people list multiple full-time jobs that they could not have had at the same time (eg, both at one employer and also at the company that acquired their old employer).
I’ve also seen people claim to have accomplished things or be in a role that is either flat-out wrong, or worded in a weaselly way that looks like they’ve accomplished a lot more than they really did (eg showing only their current title at their current employer, but listing the start date as their initial hire date, and only listing their current accomplishments/roles (or listing all of them, but implying they did something that other individuals were actually responsible for)).
I’ve also seen LinkedIn profiles that are spartanly-populated – which is cool, that kinda follows my personal philosophy of never putting anything on my resume I don’t want to be asked about. But the ones that are full of – at the very least – questionable entries on their work history seem very troubling to me.
My first instinct is to file this under “Trying too hard to sell themselves in a tough economy”. I wonder if a lot of people don’t realize that for a lot of technical fields, the job market isn’t doing too poorly. But, if all they know is a persistently high unemployment rate, then fear could motivate them to range from embellishment to lying.
I *want* to put the best possible construction on things … but sometimes it’s exceedingly difficult to do so 🙂