Lying on your resume - The reality | #grindreel

today we're gonna look at when should you lie on your resume or should you even lie on your resume when you're applying to jobs well I'm not gonna tell you what to do I'm just gonna say it's not as black and white as you would think it is and here's some food for thought I'd like you to consider job gaps job gaps are probably the most prominent thing on a resume that can destroy your chances of getting a job and it's the dumbest thing ever when you have a job gap people think that there's something wrong with you that there's something that makes you unhappy now has to be something that you're doing it's got to be your fault and that's the thing with job gaps the longer you have a gap the harder it is to get a job because you've been out of the industry you're out of touch you're all washed up just by having a job gap it implies laziness to the people that are hiring you and now some of you have had experiences with people that don't care about job gaps but for me in most people they absolutely cared about the job gap so should you lie about having a job gap should you just leave your last employer even though you don't work there as current on your resume well here's a few scenarios that these HR people and people that scrutinize job gaps that maybe don't consider you got let go without warning and it's around the holidays when it happens so you got let go early November you won't be able to find a job if you get let go in early November and probably until early February and you want to know why because of the holidays and nobody's looking at resumes or emails or applications around the holidays because everyone is taking vacation and people are covering other people that are taking vacation and everyone's just swamped with work that's not your fault but you're probably gonna have at least a three month job gap which isn't that good what about if you have a major medical procedure and you need to take care of yourself first and you just need time for recovery what about if you have a family to take care of what if your family gets sick you know I'd sure as hell take a job get to be with my family for as long as I could I wouldn't regret saying oh well uh sorry can't come to you in the hospital and come be with you and take care of you because I don't get this job gap on my resume is getting a lot longer here the HR doesn't care jobs don't care about that they only think that you've done something that clearly makes you unhireable because why else wouldn't you have a job by now what about if you've had a job twenty years and you can't land a job because you spent those 20 years working with proprietary software things that you're not allowed to talk about because you also signed an NDA and no other company has access to many of you have gone through similar situations when it comes to job gaps and so what I do is I always leave my last job as current always even if I don't have a job here are some suggestions I usually get from people on how to solve the job gap I was freelancing go ahead try it watch them say oh okay well where those freelance projects paid and can you show us or were they your friends Instagram photography website because if it was that doesn't count or people will say you know what don't lie on your resume just say you were building personal projects yeah go ahead and try it watch them say yeah we don't count personal projects as experience I tried it say that you were let go due to budget cuts that's what I did and they said oh was it your fault did you not hit your deadlines no it had nothing to do with me they just the company decided they didn't have the budget for us anymore and so we got let go it doesn't matter what you say to try and defend your job gap they will always interpret it negatively and that's it's your fault that you have a job gap and that you're lazy and you didn't hit deadlines and that whatever it is the job gap is because you did something wrong not because life happened you have two options when it comes to dealing with a job gap you can go ahead and do what I do and just leave your last job that you worked as present on your resume and don't change it and just say yeah I'm still working there I'm just looking for new and other opportunities now or you can you could tell them this is my situation and this is why I haven't been able to work and you better put on an oscar-worthy performance okay and Godspeed you know because I hope that you can manage to find a decent human that actually believes you and understand that life happens but in my experience most people just say oh job gap okay it's like finding out that you were a criminal or something in it like you've wronged a thousand people just by them finding oh yeah that's enough for today we're gonna move on to the next candidate now you'll go ahead and go ahead and try to do it the honest way I have and it's never ever done anything positive for me no one actually cared about my stories everyone just assumed I was making stuff up obviously job gap stuff doesn't apply if it's your first job in the industry right if you come from working at like Subway and you have a gap to go to school to do something and they first job of the industry that's not really like a job gap if you're changing careers going from one profession to another profession again that's not really a job gap and I always get this person that's like oh gosh what about when they background check you okay well this is how 99.99% of background checks work here in the United States of America it checks your criminal history that's all they don't run background checks to check your previous employment and I don't really know how they would do that anyways they're just gonna find your managers phone number and they're just gonna call up all the companies and you know you know how many companies that have people on there our staff website that no longer work they're like how are they gonna background check what about when they contact your last employer Josh well companies usually ask you if it's okay to contact your last employer and again this is a double-edged sword and a stupid mind game that companies do with you if you do check the box that says yes you can contact my last employer they're going to interpret that as okay he's probably got no problems with the last company he worked at he probably exited nicely and he had no issues with any managers there and he was gonna be a nice play by the rules' kind of guy and then after you check that box and they still want to contact your previous company they're going to ask you for the phone number right and now like I said this is a double-edged sword so if you're honest and you don't check that box that says you can contact my last employer that's going to make them think about some things they're going to assume that you had issues with the last company that you worked at they're gonna think the worst you won't get the time of day to explain yourself they're just gonna see that box when unchecked and they're gonna take your resume in your application and they're just gonna put that into the trash because they're just gonna think that you're nothing but problems if you don't let them contact your last employer so you realize this and you check the box that says oh yes of course you can contact my last employer and like I said they'll ask for the phone number and what do you do do you give them the number to your last managers the manager that hates your guts the manager that always had problems with you that always one up to you and that always was condescending to you do you give them the number to that manager that guy that you know would never vouch for you a day in your life because technically that was yeah that was your real manager you don't have any other one so are you gonna be honest are you gonna give the phone number for that guy or do you call up your friend and you give details of your last job and you tell them okay dude look I'm in an interview right now I really want this job I told I told the company that you were my last manager this is everything I did at my last job his name was this be that guy well what about if they ask specifics for the job well usually they don't they just ask what you did and how you interact with people so they know that if you're a troublemaker or not that's all this question is I've done it the honest way and I've done it the dishonest way and I can tell you one thing right now every time I was honest someone interpreted my honesty and that something was wrong with me and that I did something to harm the previous company or the previous employers or whatever it was it was my fault but it didn't matter right and as I learned this I just you know you see those bills come and do and you ain't got no income so you know what I've never had any job issues I've always maintained the job and I just move up through life you know I constantly look for more responsibilities and bigger projects to work on in my life here's something else I'd like you to consider about jobs companies can lie and mislead in the job description here's an example that happened to me companies can tell you that you'll get to work from home and then they'll just totally change their mind and not let you do that at one of my jobs the Job Description clearly stated we have work at home Wednesdays for the entire company and everyone else got to work at home except for us junior devs not not the CTO the actual coder boss he got to work from home why can't why can't we go home it was in the Job Description they hyped it up in the interviews when I was interviewing with the CEO and the CTO and the president of the company you know and all the other people that I met there they're like oh yeah and by the way we have work from home Wednesday so they were hyping that up to me clearly what they wouldn't change their minds and just pull that out from under you right that had to be true that had to be facts it wasn't here's another example unlimited vacation is the classic meme it's not actually unlimited we all know that right because if it was why even work but like one day a month so unless there's a minimum amount required that you have to take when you work at a job that has unlimited vacation you want to know the real reason that it's unlimited vacation it's because they don't have to pay you out two weeks vacation if you quit because they never actually had a vacation plan so if it's unlimited why even work just just work for hours once a month oh well we're gonna have to talk to you well you said unlimited right well why don't you just be transparent here's another example companies can tell you that you're gonna get a yearly review and they can say that full well knowing that they're about to go on a budget freeze and no one's getting a raise at all but in the interview though oh yeah oh no we have reviews or for your performance every six months and every year and then that's when we talk about our raises and and the guy interviewing you all the time knows that and like three weeks they're about to go on a budget freeze so you're never gonna get a raise companies can tell you whatever they want in the job interview and on the Job Description if companies don't have to be 100% transparent with you why do you have to be 100% transparent with him let's move on to the next section here I want to talk about job titles for me on my resume I never put the job title that the company gave me I always put a job title that reflects what I did on the job is this lying well let's dive a little deeper at my last job my title was front-end engineer but my responsibilities were literally everything front-end back in design marketing WordPress business reports I did everything so let's say you apply to a full-stack job but your resume has the title of front-end engineer because at my last job that's what I was you know you're qualified for this full stack position you did all the stuff at your last job so you apply to the company with the title that your last job gave you and the company that you're applying to is just going to assume that your ability extends as far as your title goes even if you've done way more and you know that you can do the job you won't get a chance to explain what that was I was just my title but at my last job I actually did X Y & Z you won't get a chance to explain that you'll be in the trash and you'll be properly ghosted so what I've learned is to change my title to reflect my job responsibilities not whatever my company gave me so on my resume I would put full stack engineer you changed your title is this lying yes it's not what the last job gave you but you did it for a good reason right it's actually better than using the title that your job gave you makes yourself and your abilities more transparent and gives your company that you're applying to a better insight into what you can actually do so you changed it in a positive light but technically yes that's lying because it wasn't the last title that your company gave you the entire goal when using a I'm a and applying to a job is to get a conversation it provides context where an application can't wear a resume can't you know a conversation will give you a chance to explain your job gap but that conversation wouldn't happen if you put that you have a job gap on your resume so just let that sink in for a minute if I think that I can do the job I'm going to apply and I'm going to do what I need to do to make that happen if I'm a perfect fit for the job and they want to chastise me for having false information clearly they don't understand passion we aren't talking about like security clearance for government jobs here we're talking about you said you work here for two years when in reality you you worked here for one year at eight months so I'd like you to ask yourself this question why are you required to be 100 percent transparent with a company but a company does not have to do that with you here's the pro tip you aren't actually required to be 100% transparent with a company it's just what good and honest people do people like you and me and in the end it ends up hurting you and this is something that's very hard to understand something that took me a long time to learn because I want to be I want to be a good person I want to be honest I want to be truthful I was like yeah of course I got nothing to hide and that doesn't help you in reality so like with everything in life there's a game applying the jobs working a job it's all a game and there's no opting out of playing the game of life you have to play the game or you will get played by giving everything about yourself away in the first play applying to the job being totally honest this is what you're doing you're walking across the football field and you're handing the other team the company you're applying to your PlayBook you're giving them the playbook with all your strategies all your plans all your best plays you're just giving it away so should you lie is it okay to lie on your resume you know I can't tell you what to do I can only tell you from my experiences working what I've done and what happened to me you have bills you need a job you're about to be homeless the clock is ticking you know if you do it the honest way you're just gonna get dismissed that's what happened to me if you try to get that conversation going by lying on your resume and they like you and they hire you and everything is fine and now you're not homeless and your bills are paid is that really a bad thing I'm just talking about this gray area that no one teaches you in school getting a job just isn't as black and white as most people think it is especially when you're new to the industry and you've never had this kind of corporate job hunting or game playing like I said before you either play the game of life or you get played that's all there is I'll let you guys decide what you want to do but I'm pretty sure if everyone was honest when it came to applying the jobs a lot of people wouldn't have jobs anyways food for thought guys and I'll see you the next one [Music] you

Channel: Joshua Fluke

Views: 1,680,094

Keywords: joshua fluke, code bootcamp, javascript, how to code, web development, brand, developer interview, developer jobs, jr developer job, lie on your resume, job gaps, freelancing projects, corporate cringe, lie to land a job, how to get a developer job

Id: 6ufwxkurKKg

Length: 14min 2sec (842 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 10 2019