How to (Diplomatically) Skirt Inappropriate Interview Questions
He was in his early 50s, and he looked every bit of it.
The questions on the job application went right to his age.
After stewing over the form and discarding his first draft, he filled out a second copy. Then, he sat and waited for his interview. As he waited, an attractive, young woman entered the room for a job interview.
She was called in before him. She wound up getting the job.
He didn’t. He did, however, receive $50,000 after filing age-discrimination claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The reason interviewers ask inappropriate questions varies. Sometimes they discriminate, as they did in the scenario above. Sometimes they need the information for internal statistics.
Most job seekers don’t want to sue over these practices. They just want to know how to deal with them diplomatically. Job seekers want to avoid appearing combative and thus jeopardizing their chances of being hired and want to avoid handing over information that can be used against them in discriminatory situations. Knowing what questions to shy away from is the starting point, and knowing how to skirt them is the next step.
To more on which questions to avoid answering and how to do so diplomatically, click here to read the full story.
“Highly Qualified” People Don’t Need to Say That in Their Resumes
You’re highly qualified. You’re results-focused.
You’re also energetic, confident and professional — and if you put those words in your resume, you’ve just caused a hiring professional’s eyes to glaze over.
Check out the full story for other flimsy, fluffy, weak words that shouldn’t appear on your resume.
Don’t Send Attachments With Your Resume
So your PowerPoint presentation holds the secret to the origins of the universe and would really, really improve your chances of being hired, you say? Doesn’t matter. Refrain from sending unsolicited attachments, unless you want to alienate recruiting professionals and risk your chances of nailing an interview. Click here for the full story.
To Tell the Truth: The Rules of Resume Fibbing
Good lord, the lies people tell on their resumes will blow your mind! A slew of hiring professionals were kind enough to share some hair-raising stories for the latest feature package I did for TheLadders.
One of my favorites: The people who claim fluency in a language and then don’t get past “Hola” when the recruiter commences the interview in that language. Hahaha! NAILED!!
That’s just one of many stories I collected for this great package. If you’re thinking of fudging something on your resume, if your current resume claims you got that M.A. when you’re actually 8 credits short, if you’re trying to cover up a gap in your work history when you were out of work or back in school or incarcerated or whatever, you’ll want to read this article to learn the facts regarding what potential employers do to check you out.
Below are the first few paragraphs; click here for the full article, and please, let me know how your job hunts are going!
To Tell the Truth: Resume Rules
Recruiters and resume experts draw a firm line between putting your best foot forward and lying on your resume.
By Lisa Vaas
The woman was mousy and small — just 5 feet tall and 105 pounds. She wanted to be hired full time at the Ohio-based manufacturing facility where she was temping, and asked what she had to do to make that happen.
Well, you have to fill out an application and go through an interview, and then we’ll do a background check, the vice president of human resources, Matthew Rosen, told her.
I’ll have a tough time with the background check, said the woman.
That was an understatement. The background check revealed a criminal record and hard time in a penitentiary. When Rosen asked the woman about it, she said her husband had beaten her, repeatedly. So she shot him — a crime for which she spent seven years behind bars.
Rosen’s jaw hit the floor. And yet, Rosen recommended hiring her.
It “turned out beautifully,” Rosen said. The woman is still working at the plant today. She’s one of the organization’s best workers, grateful just to have been given a chance.
It’s an extreme case. Many people have issues they’d rather sweep under the carpet than reveal on a resume — from work-history gaps to degrees not received to an age that’s either too ripe or too raw to admit. But all resume issues have one thing in common: Getting caught in a lie about them can obliterate your chances of getting hired.
“It’s going to be discovered. If it gets discovered, or when, there will be no chance you’ll get that job,” said Rosen, who is now human resources director for Schiller International University in Largo, Fla. “You have a better chance explaining it — much better. If they run a background check, then it will get discovered, and then you’ve lied to these people. Who’ll hire someone who’s lied to them? I’m going to hire someone who did something and went to a penitentiary. I’ll never hire someone who’s lied to me.”
But while it’s easy to preach truthfulness, resumes are marketing documents that present candidates in the best light. It begs the question: What can you successfully gloss over, and how do you do it without turning yourself into a liar? When is it OK to polish, and when does an embellishment become a forgery?
In this package, TheLadders draws the line. Certified professional resume writers, job seekers, corporate recruiters and career coaches speak out to delineate the difference between an appropriate omission and a deliberate disguise. They break down the resume into sections and define what shows what and how you can tweak your resume to make it shine and still stay within the bounds of honesty. The result is a clear topography of this slippery slope for all those job seekers who’ve found themselves questioning the distinction between exaggeration and fabrication.
Tech Journalist At Your Service
Welcome to my new blog! After 12.5 years at eWEEK, I’m now free to help out with your tech writing needs. If you need a top-notch writer and editor who thoroughly understands the industry, from security to open source to virtualization to the meaning of deadlines, I’d be happy to chat. I’m available for freelance assignments or long-term work.
A huge shout-out to the good people at IPG (Internet Press Guild) for their help in getting this site together.
