It’s a resume writer’s job to help their client get short-listed but there’s a point at which an ’embellished’ resume ventures into criminal territory.
Republic Resumes terminates clients who lie. This story is taken from ABC News and edited to fit.
When medical student Zhi Sin Lee applied for an intern position while completing her final year, she wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.
But when she failed the last year of her medical degree, she decided to lie about her qualifications.
She accepted a job with Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney and started work as an intern in January 2021.
She worked there for seven months before it was discovered that she hadn’t completed a medical degree.
She was fined $10,000 and given a large community service order. Lee narrowly avoided going to prison.
But former West Australian state Labour politician Barry Urban was not so lucky. Since November last year, he’s been behind bars.
Urban entered the Western Australian police force in 2005 before moving into parliament in 2017.
He’s been convicted of a number of counts of fraud about his qualifications to become a police officer.
Investigation by a news reporter led to Urban appearing before a parliamentary committee, where he again lied about the forgeries.
In doing so he committed a specific offence in WA law – that of giving false evidence before Parliament. Urban was sentenced to three years’ jail.
Lying about your Microsoft Word proficiency or concocting a minor, internet-based qualification is a lesser offence.
But deception which has the ability to affect somebody’s health or life is one of the most significant sorts of frauds.
Attaching a fake reference or qualification to your CV is forgery.
It’s never worth lying in a CV because it’s an unexploded bomb.
It’s always better to be honest, and to try and charm people in the interview.