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Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
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March 19th, 2010Law SchoolThe Interviewer will see you now
By far the most fun and excruciating part of my externship is the fact that I get to play a significant role in hiring my replacement. It is fun because I get to look at resumes of other students and conduct interview. It is very different being on the opposite side of the table. It is also excruciating because there are so many to choose from and they all seem very qualified. I am getting a lot of resumes from law students and MBA’s. Some students are very easy to eliminate and it’s usually the MBA students. Law students are more likely to do targeted cover letters and be explicit about why they are interested in the position whereas MBA students tend to have poor writing skills and one even had a misspelling in an email response to me. I wish I could take back the interview invitation. This experience has given me a first-hand look at what it’s like to be the interviewer. It is a good review for me and has reminded me of the importance of paying close attention to detail and being truthful on my resume.
I went through all the resumes and ranked the candidates. Today happened to be the day I interviewed the #1 candidate with significant financial regulatory work experience and an alphabet soup of degrees that included an MBA and JD as well as being close to completing an LLM in securities regulation. The #1 candidate’s resume listed him as being fluent in three languages and claimed to have the ability to speak four other languages. It was unlucky for him that I happen to be able to speak one of them. At the end of our interview when we were having casual conversation I told him that I admired his repertoire of language skills and switched over to one of his claimed languages and asked him “how well do you speak the language?” He responded in English by saying that “I” speak it well except I asked him how well “he” spoke the language not how well I speak it and his response was in English. I thought maybe the abrupt switch to another language may have confused him so I asked him one more time and he, again, in English, talked about how he picked up so many various languages. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Have you ever exaggerated on our resume and gotten caught?
Tags: Externship, Interview, Interviewing
9 responses to “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire” 
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Sounds very Rebecca Bloomwood in Confessions of a Shopaholic
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The person didn’t sounds too horrible. In the tech field, I once got a manager that was supposed to be a SQL Server expert, among other things. This proved to be incorrect. He didn’t know the first thing about SQL Server and had to come to me for everything.
And yet, they kept him on… Often it is the cheaters/liars that get ahead in business (unlike the fables we hear growing)…
Don@Moneyreasons´s last blog ..What I Have Learned To Date From Blogging!
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@MeinMillions and @DonatMondyReasons
I think the guy is generally okay and is very skilled, and he may even know a few words of the language so he didn’t completely misrepresent like Rebecca Bloomwood. Interesting reference nevertheless. -
I figured if I can keep up a casual conversation in a language it’s not ‘resume-ready’. Even then I am careful to designate my language abilities ‘conversational’ as opposed to ‘fluent’ or ‘expert’.
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Ooops, I meant, if I *can’t* keep up a casual conversation..
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I’ve never lied on a resume for fear that I will get caught. I mean, just thinking about it gives me the palm sweats and it really is just an uncomfortable feeling to have. I’ve heard stories of people fibbing, but I can’t believe you actually caught someone in that fib! Does this mean you’ll never lie Jane?
Investing Newbie´s last blog ..The Secret [Raise] -
@Caity
It was somewhat uncommon.@WellHeeled
I agree that before a language is “resume-ready” we should at least be able to converse in it.@InvestingNewbie
I have not intentionally misrepresented my skills on my resume and I don’t list my linguistic skills becuase it has always been irrelevant to the position I was applying. -
That really would be fascinating, to see it from the other side of the table! I remember once going through a stack of unsuccessful resumes and informing the candidates of our decision – it’s amazing how bad some of the resumes were.
eemusings´s last blog ..Lessons learned from living alone
me in millions March 19th, 2010 at 15:12