After an interview, employers will sometimes walk you to your car. It’s meant to seem as a nice gesture, but they’re actually trying to covertly find out more information about you. They’ll be looking to see what kind of car you drive to determine how much they might have to offer you. They’re looking to see if the inside of your car is a mess to determine if you’re slovenly and undisciplined. Obviously, if you’re driving some old beater and you’re applying for a $75,000 per year job, the employer may have some serious reservations about hiring you.  If they do, you can count on them low balling you by $10, 000 to $15,0000.

You may have recently heard that two very high profile executives have been busted for lying on their resumes. There are a few lessons to be learned from this

that can help you in your job search. Before we jump into that let’s first go over the details of what happened.

“Broadcom Senior Vice President Vahid Manian said on his corporate bio he had a B.S.E.E. and an M.B.A. from UC Irvine, but it turns out he never even finished his bachelor’s, “writes the Silicon Alley Insider. There was also the report from Bloomberg news that stated, MGM Mirage, the casino company majority-owned by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Terry Lanni will retire this month, as questions about his post-graduate education surfaced.” It turns out that Lanni claimed to have an MBA from USC though he never attended that university.

Did I mention that Broadcom SVP Manian was making over $3 Million per year!?! And without so much as a bachelor’s degree. And what about Lanni? He had a base salary of $2 million in 2007, but received total compensation of $12.7 million, which included incentives and perks.

So within the span of the last two months we’ve got two very high level executives that got outed about fake degrees on their resumes, but both have been described as being very competent at their jobs.

Both these guys took a calculated risk and decided to lie and for all practical purposes it paid off. They’re not going to do jail time and they get to keep all of those millions in cash. Now the question to ask yourself is: What level of achievement, and compensation would they have been able to achieve had they NOT lied about their college degrees?

I am a Mortgage Loan Officer (with 13 years total in the business) in an area located in South Carolina that has been hurt by this mortgage crisis along with the rest of the country. There is still production here and this area is not as bad as other locations in the U.S.

I am currently in the hiring process with a mortgage company that is doing very well compared to the other companies. Most Loan Officers are seeking employment with companies that have high standards that want to see a Loan Officers’ production numbers for the previous year.

I am scheduled to have an interview at their Headquarters and the first thing they will ask for is my production numbers for 2007.

Do you have a way to produce numbers that they will not go out and investigate? I am short $1.8 Million of the goal. I can give them an email provided to me by my employer (who I was with for 3 years). I can fudge the numbers a little to make up the difference yet I do not want to be caught in outright dishonesty.

I really need this job with this company. They are progressive and promise to make a good loan officer better. I absolutely need to produce the minimum.

What in your opinion is the best way to handle this? I can give them the email with fudged numbers and they will be happy. If, however, they decide to check on these numbers, I am in a pickle.

How do you think I should handle this. My resume’ is stellar and I have a good reputation. I am just paranoid that if they call my ex-employer to verify the numbers then the dishonesty will kill the deal.

Signed,

Scared in South Carolina

Dear Scared

The rule of thumb here is to never lie about anything that can easily be verified or confirmed. If you can get away with fudging your numbers a bit do so. But more importantly is exaggerating things that they can’t verify. For example you can mention how you use guerilla methods of obtaining your own leads. Tell them you do a lot of targeted networking, that you speak at a Toastmasters group, that you have a Myspace or Facebook page dedicated to lead generation, etc. By showing your prospective employer that you’re proactive and actually go out and generate your OWN business as opposed to many who sit around the office hoping that the company’s marketing department (assuming that they even have one) will create a campaign that will get the phone ringing.

Your goal is to show that you’re resourceful, entrepreneurial and proactive as well as being a good mortgage loan office that can close loans.

If you over exaggerate your numbers you might bring a closer investigation of the validity of your numbers. Since South Carolina is also hurting from the credit meltdown, you’re better off saying that you were one of the top mortgage loan officers in your company. That fact will be more difficult to check out

If your $1.8M shortfall is of paramount importance and you feel it will come up, then you can say that you did bring in well over the $1.8M in loans but your processor or underwriting team couldn’t or wouldn’t approve the loan. This helps deflect the blame and says, “Hey I can bring in the loans, if you can close them.”

Let me know if you have any questions, and please let me know when you get hired.

Good luck!

The key to good resume outline is to keep it uncluttered and straightforward. A cluttered resume is hard to read. If it’s hard to read, it will most likely not be read and end up in the trash.

Begin by writing your contact information in the Heading at the top. Give your future employer a few options for contacting you. Make sure you include a day time phone, cell phone, and an email address that you check often.

After that use an Objective or Qualifications Summary to highlight off your unique brand. What is a Unique Brand? Well, just like Martha Stewart, Oprah and Emeril all have their own brands. You should have one as well. What does a future employer think about when YOU come to mind? More importantly, what do YOU want them to think about when they think about you? That is your Personal Brand and it MUST be clearly stated in your resume outline as well as your full resume.

Most companies from Subway Sandwiches to Mercedes Benz have all claimed mind share in the thoughts of their key demographic, so why can’t you? When you establish a personal brand you differentiate yourself and position yourself apart from the competition and win the job. In this case, your key demographic are the hiring managers and recruiters that deal with thousands of resumes each day. Job seekers are viewed as commodities, and unless you provide some unique value, which your competition do not share, you will be bunched in with every one of your competitors for the job. The goal is to stand out from the masses and in doing so; you will land a great job.

Let’s get back to your resume outline. The next section should include a Professional Experience section. This is where you write where you worked ,how long your worked there, and what you did for the company. The important part of this section is to make sure you specifically state how you helped the previous company you worked for to either make more money or save money. Remember that a hiring manager has a problem that they need solved and you MUST quickly and effectively show that on your resume outline, and on your final resume and at the job interview how you are the answer to their problem. If you can’t concisely get that idea across, then the first person that can…will get the job.

Afterwards comes the Education section. This is where you include any degrees you have, specific licenses and special credentials. Now if you’re writing an entry level resume and just graduated high school or college, then this is where you brag a bit about any honors your achieved, special advanced classes you took and if they’re impressive your GPA (Grade Point Average)

NEVER include personal information such as your race, religion, date of birth, height, weight, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything of that nature.

So to summarize; in order to write a great outline resume keep it clean, solution oriented, make your brand stand out and make sure the outline has about three to five sections and no more.

For advanced tips on resume outline

A traditional resume objective will tell you to include something like this:

• emphasize your primary qualifications and summarize them for the prospective employer <—close but not quite.
• Tell the prospective employer of the position you are seeking and your career goals <—- BORING!
• establish your professional identity <—–Like anybody cares!

An example of a bad objective for your resume would be:

“To become a meaningful part of a fast growing company as a management professional” <—Yes I’ve seen something almost verbatim like this on many resumes as their objective. This is seriously weak and pathetic and will end up with your resume in the trash before they stop laughing with how lame your resume objective is!

More than ever, companies are in the fight for their lives and will pay TOP DOLLAR for someone, anyone that can solve their problem, whatever it may be. Your resume objective must grab them by the throat and immediately make the reader think, “Hmmm, this resume objective is different from the others and sounds interesting. I’ll put this one in the pile for me to look at more closely later.”

So what should you write as a solid, attention grabbing resume objective? Anything that clearly states how you will SAVE the company money, MAKE the company money or whatever problem or challenge the position you’re applying for is mainly responsible for.

John Doe Resume:

Objective: To join a company and grow their market share by 28% in the NorthEast like I did for my current employer

Now if that doesn’t get the attention of an employer, nothing will.

For more great example objective resume information click here

There’s an old saying that says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  Unfortunately this adage is very relevant to writing resumes and cover letters.  Over the years you’ve probably been told to add anything and everything that shows what a great citizen you are.  Perhaps you’ve been told to add a section at the bottom of your resume detailing your volunteer affiliations, hobbies or groups you’re a member of.  Doing so can immediately put your resume in the garbage.

How much do Human Resources managers and hiring managers discount each resume and cover letter? Based on recent surveys up to 25%! So if you’re being a straight shooter and not exaggerating ANYTHING in the least, then you’ve just given yourself a serious handicap against your competition for the job.

“Hire Right” did a study that showed how prevalent resume fraud is. The company’s figures show that 80% of all resumes and cover letters are misleading, 20% include fraudulent mentions of certification or degrees, 30% show changed employment dates, 40% have inflated salary claims, 30% have inaccurate job descriptions, 25% list companies that no longer exist, and 27% give bogus references

In case you’re curious about which industries have the largest amount of lies and exaggeration, hospitality, transportation and IT had the highest rates of falsified resumes, while the public sector had the lowest.

Have you lied or exaggerated on your resume? If so how much? Did you get away with it? Or are you someone that was 100% honest on your resume an got penalized for it?