When searching for a new job, are you honest on your resume? Are “white lies” OK? How about significant misstatements, if you fear a low chance of being caught? In fact, do you even consider this topic as trivial? 🙂 Well, today we look at resume honesty by age cohort. Any predictions before reading below?
Before discussing resume honesty, please consider these two broader posts related to ethical behavior: Issues in Business Ethics and Perceived Honesty of Professionals.
A Generational Study: Are YOU Honest on YOUR Resume?
Tell us if the study findings surprise you. As reported by for Inc.:
“How many Americans lie on their resumes? The surprising answer: Not that many. In an online survey of 1,003 people conducted for the personal finance site GOBankingRates, only 5 percent of respondents reported that they’d ever lied on a resume.”
[EOM observation: In a survey, how many people will lie about lying? 🙂]
“But apparently, the younger you are, the likelier you are to be untruthful, at least when applying for a job. Eleven percent of Millennials said they had lied on their resumes. And 14 percent of Gen Z respondents said they’d done it. Only 2 percent of Baby Boomers said they’d ever lied on a resume.“
“And they don’t feel bad about it. While 54 percent of men and 42 percent of women who lied in all age groups felt guilty about doing so, only 27 percent of Millennials did. The difference may be changing attitudes about employment and employers. Based on this scathing piece from George Takei’s site ComicSands, about what older generations don’t get about today’s job market, changing employment practices, and attitudes about employers may be to blame.”
Click the image to read a lot more.
I thought this was very interesting, especially when discussing that a lot of millennials and Gen Z have lied on their resumes and would do it again. It states that “38 percent said they’d lied about their work experience” and I looked at this from a college students perspective. Many students have internships where they do not have many important tasks, so they are almost forced to exaggerate or connect a small task to something that the job description entails. I am not saying this is ethical or not, but wanted to put a thought out there as to why and when people have done this in their life.