Lully QOTW...
...'cos I love practicing the art of lies.

It started when I finished my GCSE's and had to write a personal statement to put in the folder to take to job interviews. The folder is long burnt now but I can remember including that I had won a young player of the year award at a prestigious tennis club.

Ive only been ever 'officially' sacked twice: once after six weeks honourable service at McDonalds (pity the fool) for giving away a Big Mac Meal to my mate, and secondly as a result of the eBay kerfuffle (see other qotw in profile). As you might imagine, I didnt want to be truthful about these unfortunate events so my McDonalds stint turned into a worker-in-six-weeks-turns-to-supervisor success story and t'other landed me a fat payout from an awfully drawn out and incredibly untrue employment tribunal.

My current highlights are volunteering for a cerebal palsy charity, fluent in French and a keen footballer. This roughly translates as I used to occasionally look after my mates kid who suffered from CP, Im half French but je serais foutu if I can speak the lingo properly and finally, I play fitbae down the park three times a summer.

And yes, the word socialising is a fantastic way of incorporating my appreciation of Columbias finest into formal tones.

Gawd bless CV's.
( prem1um is full of life, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 18:37, Reply)

My Curicilam viaeto says...
...my 5 strenhgts are my speling, my taemwork and my acountintcy skils
(Lt Columbo, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 18:34, Reply)

Oh dear
At School Once at the age of 13 we had to make fake CV's and then have fake interviews about the job we wanted to do at the time by the local Rotary Club.

Numorous kids were putting jobs such as soldier or Zoo keeper and listing they were good at computer games (which increased hand eye co-ordination)

At the time me and some friends had been making short films with the woderfull medium of Playmobile and listed 'making films' on the fake CV.

For some reason they thought that we all made mucky videos for putting that down and kept questioning us about it - sod the job interview lets discuss films!
(The lord Boo., Thu 6 Jul 2006, 18:03, Reply)

Companies
Prior to my recent job move, I had worked at the same company for 18 years. I had been advised that this would be taken as evidence of inertia, rather than the brilliant decisiveness-to-stay that it actually was.

Luckily, I was able to use the company's many changes of name over the years to put together a CV that looked something like a normal career progression. OK, not exactly a lie, but what the hell.

Cue redundancy, my new employers turned up personally at the office within the hour and offered me a job on the spot. (Yes, I am a supremely spawny get.)

Therefore, lovely inventiveness of the CV goes unseen. Sigh.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 18:01, Reply)

Just a bit out of date
Well, they always say you should try and grab their attention with the 'hobbies and interests' bit...

mine include: parachuting (until I went *splat* 10 years ago and now walk like Herr Flick), hillwalking/climbing (likewise, as people with buggered knees can't make it out of the car park let alone gallop across the countryside), socialising (trans: grumpy aggressive drunk with no mates), shooting (help help there's a psycho in the interview who will vault the desk and insert office equipment into me), and naval history (oh bugger me it's Hornblower). I left out FPS games and 90's Thrash 'cos I though it would be a negative (?)

Luckily no-one ever gets that far as they are all going 'why is a marine biologist working in the car business??

My stock answer 'it looked like something interesting to do before joining the forces' doesn't cut much ice when they expect me to witter on about swimming with fucking Flipper and saving the planet.

Then they realise that the superfit skydiving climbing outdoory type is after 15 years a baldy lardarse who checks out female interviewers (IILF anyone?) and for some reason still employ me. They all learn, eventually.

However my sister did get interviews on the grounds that her interests included 'talking to her collection of house plants'. Aahh, the media...
(osok Rebel without a clue, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 17:52, Reply)

Mistaken Identity
Funny this should come up-

I'm currently trying to get a job having just finished university, which means sending off many applications with my CV. Fair enough

One of my friends asked me to help her write her CV so she could get a summer job, so I just used mine as a template
Turns out we have similar phone numbers
and I managed to not change them properly.
So she sent off her CV for a few jobs- which included pictures of her (she wants to do some modelling and is rather attractive- probably why I was so willing to help out)
Cue me now getting dodgy texts from what I can only assume are dirty old men saying she can have the job if she sends more pictures or other such similar unsavoury activities

I've since told her
She sees the oppurtunity to cause mayhem- She wants me to send the asked for questions of my ugly male self :)


No jokes about length here- it'll be shock enough for the dirty old men if i send pictures :)
(bignutter, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 17:50, Reply)

Its all true
just a touch of hyperbole in places
( JimmyD I let my best ideas go to waste, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 17:33, Reply)

Degree
I quit uni in my second year due to it being in Bradford and costing me more than being a single mother addicted to crack. I needed a job (because I was nevertheless horrendously poor and living in a mouse infested dross-hole) so I fibbed about having a degree in telecommunications.

Two years later and I'm now working for a very large (you will have heard of it) telecommunications firm. I'm on good money and people respect me. The HR department have just got round to asking me to show them a copy of my degree certificate.

It's either crack out CS and pray, or tell the truth and kiss goodbye to my car. What would you do!?

(So far I have deleted the email request and prayed. This has worked for 2 weeks but since HR pay me they are unlikely to forget I exist. Bugger)
(Northern Lovely, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 17:30, Reply)

gf
In the interests and hobies section of my CV I've got "arguing with my girlfriend". FACT!

Its not a lie.
:(
(cymro, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 17:19, Reply)

Lets face it
every one has lied on their CV, but my biggest lie was telling the HR Manager I had a certificate in summat or other, then he wanted to see it, so I had to google a bit, find a copy of one then shop it before E'ing it back to the office. Hey it worked!Thanx to CS2
( frogdog Fuck Your Holy Leaders, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 17:16, Reply)

Hoogie:
YOU'RE HIRED!

I haven't lied as such on my CV yet, just the usual 'Hard Working person' bollocks... but I am a fucking top blag artist, and get any job I get interviewed for...
(The Splendid Oaf, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 17:04, Reply)

El Presidente

"President of a large student society"

That on it's own is impressive, however, when more of the pesky truth is revealed it's really quite rubbish. I can't bring myself to remove this achievement from my CV though and always pray that the interviewer glosses over my claim.

Firstly the society was the Tennents Lager Appreciation Society. Not quite as respectable as most employers are hoping for.

Secondly while we did have nearly 200 members (a lot for a small university) there really wasn't actually a society to speak of. There was only one event for the whole year that only a few people turned up for, we didn't manage to complete the complicated task of affiliating the society so we couldn't get our hands on any lovely Students' Association money, and we didn't even manage to find a replacement committee for the next year so the society died under my watch.

Years later I happened to move several hundred miles to the same city as the old treasurer who still has in his possession the bank account books for our old society which require both our signatures. I've been here 2 years and we still haven't got round to clearing out our old account.

Quite frankly I'm amazed I can hold down a job, let alone run a society.
( djtrialprice, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 17:04, Reply)

Trilingual / J'ai Trois Langues / Habe ich zwei Tongen
If you're applying for a job with the London office of a German management consulting firm, don't include "conversational German" on your CV if you only studied it for a year, eight years previously, and have tried to avoid and forget it ever since.

Otherwise, you might find yourself at the end of an interview (that otherwise went quite well) being asked a question like "Schnerzer wertzer burzter nertzer vee vei vo vumm?". And having to reply with "err... err... err... err... I guess my Germany must be rustier than I thought."

I didn't get the job. And now I don't lie on my CV, either.
(stalinism, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:53, Reply)

My Current CV is Fucking Bullshit
This is what mine says at the end in my summary bit:

I am self-motivated, confident, honest and hard working. I enjoy being with other people and
find it easy to build working relationships quickly. As a result, I am good as working as a team
player or as an individual. I thrive on a challenge and obtain a great deal of satisfaction in
obtaining personal and professional goals. I am very ambitious and career orientated with a
positive and confident outlook on life.

Ok - Ill break that down for you.

I like playing on the internet on my own, I dont need help to surf B3TA and footy sites, as I speak to people on the internet, the geeks you will place me near have no interest to me and id rather stick pins in my bellend than socialise with them cunts.

However I will shag any female under 10 stone whose tits get to the door before she does.

My positive outlook is based on me shovelling copius amounts of ale down my throat and as much white powder up my beak as humanly possible, before crashing out and starting the day again.

Give me a job or ill skullfuck your mum you cunthorse.
(hoogie Original Cunt Horse Author, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:52, Reply)

I've never lied on a CV
Becuase I really am a "self-proclaimed sex god". Just ask my palms.
( Naive Amoeba Bored Cig, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:50, Reply)

i cant do flash
put flash on my CV as i had done some at uni but hated it. managed to blag the first interview with some big flashy flash-based company, the guy interviewing me wasnt the boss but some underling who must have gone back to the big boss and said "holy hell! hire that guy!!".
Got an email saying, "we liked your previous interview a lot but for policy-sake we have to have a second one, bring some flash anim based on xxxx. see you on monday pm...".
did no work for this till monday am. Arrived early - big boss. bigger boss and me round a table. showed them what i had done and they looked at me like i had just asked them to shove the table fruit up me. told them i was wasting their time and i should leave, but they had practically chosen me already and had no-one else left to interview. they quite desperately tried to find some post i could fill, but i left rather embarassed.
think flash is still on my CV actually...

no apologies for length - i already warned you, apologies for the cheesy smell tho.
(theresonlyme, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:41, Reply)

According to my CV, I'm proficient in
PHP, VRML, HTML, SQL, XML, XSL, RSS, OPML, SMIL, SVG, CSS.

Not a fucking clue what half that means. Last interview, I was asked what work I had done in SMIL. So, I bit the bullet and spewed forth a magnificent stream of bullshit the likes of which I had never produced before, and have yet to reproduce.

It was like I went into a Zen mode and some higher being took control of my vocal chords, as I confidently explained the many varied uses of the highly-vaunted 'Superceding Macro Interface Language', rounding off with a few subtle expressions of surprise that the interviewer had never heard of it himself. After it all died down and I recovered control over myself, I sat there and stared the interviewer in the eye, as if to say "Go ahead. Call my bluff. I dare you."

Turned out he hadn't any more idea what SMIL was than I had. Got the job two days later.
( Spunk Murphy Tchaikovsky is a synonym for fanny, apparently, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:36, Reply)

Hobbies:
Reading (the telly page doesn't count apparently)

Swimming (neither does paddling down Barry Island while eating a cone of chips)
( Geoff the Clownfish You know Myra, some people might think you're cute, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:35, Reply)

Rock Hard Soldier
I used to put "spent some time in the Israeli Army", thinking that it made me sound 'kin 'ard.
"some time" equates to one week on a special course for forgeigners thinking of emigrating (I didn't).
It did always get picked up in interviews, but in a "get this fucking psycho out of my office" kind of way.
( MontyyouterribleCUNT I gave Jeremy Kyle cancer, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:32, Reply)

CVs!
I occasionally have to do the technical interviews for people who want to come and work with whatever company I'm at so I see a lot of CVs.

Sadly, I've yet to meet a boss who'll take any notice of my suggestion that we should randomly split the pile of CVs into two equal piles and throw one pile in the bin so that:

"We don't employ any unlucky people by accident"

I swear that one day I'm going to get this policy through.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:23, Reply)

I didn't lie. I was just unqualified.
My current job involves termites (termites|setimret, imagine that!). Problem is, I had never seen a termite before I interviewed for the job.

On the interview, they took me out to the woods to show me their field site. I kicked over a piece of wood, and there were all these white bugs crawling around.

I looked nervously at my hosts, and I thought "I'll bet those are termites."

One of them said "Oh, look, there's a soldier running around."

"Ah, yes," I said, "look at him go!"

I had no idea what a soldier termite looked like.

I've been on the job for five years now.
( setimret likes his metaphors mixed, not stirred, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:22, Reply)

Ninjaness
I wrote on my CV a couple of years ago that I was a British taekwondo champion. This was technically true.

What I failed to mention was that it was in the yellow belt division (ie I'd only been doing taekwondo for about six months), it was for patterns, not sparring (couldn't enter for sparring as I was just about to do my final recital at music college and couldn't risk breaking any cello-playing bones) and since women hardly ever enter tournaments, even national ones, I'd only had to beat two other girls.

So my prospective employers assumed that I was some sort of hard-arsed ninja master, and I didn't actually have to lie at all.

I got the job, and I'm still working there.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:16, Reply)

I have qualifications
...according to my CV. Not true. I'm just experienced.

See, I wrote my CV on my dad's computer, years ago, and I'd lied to him about finishing that college course. I figured after dropping out of university for being a lazy cnut, he'd be angry if I failed as miserably at my HND.

So he never knew I was just an 'A' Level guy. I needed his help getting the CV in order, so he was going to see what I'd written, and I was living at home for this jobless period, so he got to see the printed versions I sent out too.

I got a job, and no-one checked.
And another one.
And another...

It still says I have an HND on my CV. It's stayed firmly on the file, no matter what other updates I've made over the years.
I'm used as a consultant on all matters legal and scientific due to my "qualifications".
Bollocks - I've just got thirteen years of work in the field.
( no cake for the impuritay Patrick Stewart hasn't aged since, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:14, Reply)

Non smoking and hobbies
In the early nineties I listed that I was a non smoker and some of my hobbies included socialising and music.

I was smoking 20 a day back then and the socialising was "going out on the piss every night and getting bladdered" and music was "Going to various clubs and Rave parties to the early hours at the weekends"
(lurkster I said a double vodka...., Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:12, Reply)

i told b3ta i was funny when i signed up
sorry!
( Gerbilinafishtank Gerbil in a fish tank...TURTLE POWER!, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:11, Reply)

I said
..I like theatre and the arts where in fact I should have said wanking loads and smoking crack.
(Fonkadelix is fucking bored, pass the crack pipe Mavis., Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:09, Reply)

C still is a cool programming language!
I've never outright lied on a CV, just primped up the available facts with nice words.
(mehmeh 0% witty, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:07, Reply)

Quick reflexes
My CV says I'm so quick that I managed the first post on B3TA QOTW.
(BeatsWork, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:06, Reply)

Salary
Dont lie on my CV, but do lie in the interview about how much i'm earning so i get paid more
(loquis, Thu 6 Jul 2006, 16:02, Reply)