When applying for jobs, your resume is your weapon of first resort. It has one primary purpose: to get you an interview. As such, it needs to present you to the world in the best possible light. Occasionally, this means you need to bend the truth a little.
Now, before we get down to details, let me make myself clear: it is NEVER okay to tell straight out lies on your resume. DO NOT create jobs or positions you never had. DO NOT manufacture qualifications you have not earned. DO NOT change dates to hide awkward gaps in your work history. Lies are lies and eventually will bring you unstuck. And don’t kid yourself: after years of reading resumes, I can assure you that any good recruiter can spot a piece of CV fiction from a good distance.
That’s the parental lecture out of the way. What about ways you CAN, legitimately, bend the truth on your resume to improve your chances of landing an interview for the job?
Don’t tell them your age
There is no reason to provide your age or date of birth on your resume, particularly if you are concerned that it might work against you. Simply leave it off. If they really want to know how old you are, they can deduce it from your career and education background anyway. But you want those things to be read before such a conclusion is drawn. You don’t want (and this does happen) the recruiter to discard your resume without reading it simply because they see your date of birth as 1962 on the first page.
The same applies here to any other thing you fear might cause you to be discriminated against: gender (if you have a non-gender specific name), disabilities, ethnic origin and so on.
Clean up your position titles
Ever had one of those wonderful modern job titles that hardly fit on to a business card? You know the ones: Senior Client Satisfaction & Outcomes Manager, People Capital Executive Personal Attendant, Vice President: Housekeeping and Bathroom Hygiene. These might make you look grand to your clients, but they make no sense to people trying to learn about your past.
So simplify them: Customer Service Manager, Human Resources Assistant, Cleaner.
Provided you are not presenting yourself as something you are not – providing your duties are consistent with the more ‘traditional’ title used on your resume – there is absolutely nothing wrong with this sort of truth bending. You are simply making your background clearer and, as a bonus, more database friendly.
Leave off reasons for leaving
There are mixed views on this one, but in my experience it is cleaner not to state the reasons you left your previous jobs. There are only really two reasons for leaving a job: because you wanted a change, or because you were asked to leave. In these heady days of financial crisis and uncertainty, both are perfectly valid. And both are best discussed at interview, so let them wait until then.
All of these guidelines apply as much to application letters as they do to resumes. And, of course, feel free to ignore them – especially if to do so would be to paint you in a negative light. If youth is likely to be important, and you are youthful, then there is no problem leaving your age in.
Bending the truth on a resume is not about telling porky pies. It is about presenting your background in the best possible light, even if that means being a little creative.
This article was written for Classifind.com.au.
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I've been work- ing in business, one way or another, for the last 20 years, and writing for the last ten. My main interest now is to get messages across - yours and mine - in a readable and approachable fashion. 
