| 1- Script
of Recording
Those
Little White Lies
From the Guardian
Monday, January 24, 2000
@Guardian
Script
You know you’re the best person for the job but
your CV does not quite convey this. Surely, it would not hurt to
shove in an extra language O level and exaggerate your knowledge
of Excel ? Checking job applicants’ CVs for little white lies is
about to get much easier.
Credit reference Company Experian announced last
week that it had struck a deal with the UK universities to compile
a database of all degree results after 1995 available to sceptical
employers for a fee.
There is certainly a market for the service. The
Association of Search and Selection Consultants recently found that
a quarter of all CVs contain lies. Former London Mayoral candidate,
Jeffrey Archer, was fond of being economical with the truth on his
CV suggesting he had studied at the famous public school Wellington
and taken an MA from Oxford University. In fact, he went to the
less famous Wellington School in Somerset and his time in Oxford
was part of a postgraduate diploma for which he was unqualified
never having passed his first degree.
But secretaries at least seem to have been getting
away with little white lies. Two thirds of firms that employ support
staff do not test their skills. Even though these often rate far
more highly than qualifications in recruiting for secretarial posts.
“I knew one secretary who did not even use full
stops”, laughed Richard Chandler an HR specialist. “Another said
she was proficient in shorthand and yet it turned out she was not
familiar with a single outline”.
Debra Aldcock, head of campaigning at The Industrial
society, is quick to defend today’s secretarial sinners. “Who can
blame them in such a competitive market?’, she says.
“ If you make something up altogether just to
secure a job, you’re bound to be caught out”, says Julia Burt, a
29 year old PA. Burt speaks from experience. She exaggerated her
proficiency at PowerPoint and various spreadsheet packages hoping
that if she got the job, someone would teach her. In fact, she had
only a very basic knowledge of computers. Her interview was humiliating,
“The employer said my body language was a dead giveaway and told
me to go home and rewrite my CV and stop wasting his time.” Even
if that had not happened, the humiliation of being totally incompetent
on your first day must be unbearable.
Perhaps the most discouraging trend for CV liars
though is employers’ increasing use of recruitment consultancies,
most of which now insist on examining skills the minute you apply-
even down to basic numeracy.
(426
words)
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Those
Little White Lies
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