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I sometimes wonder why the food pictured on a menu just never seems to look as appealing when your server delivers it to your table. The portrayed image and what actually arrives can be disparate realities. What you see is often not what you get in many avenues of life. I know it's probably happened to everyone in any number of instances.
Truth in advertising (or lack of it) even applies to career change and the effective job search. It's not uncommon for a candidate to embellish his resume with grandiose achievements or add the degree that just doesn't exist to make himself look more hirable and attractive to an employer or recruiter.
I have seen hundreds of variations on this theme in my career as a recruiter, but today I would like to tell a story about a particular kind of candidate who I would consider the "king of the hill" when it comes to the picture not matching the fare. While a lot of people commit 'sins of omission' and manufacture or alter facts here and there, this guy takes the prize for either arrogance or delusion, so we will refer to him as Mr. Delusional.
Mr. Delusional is the kind of guy who is very keyed in to what recruiters and employers like to see on a resume. The claims he makes never match the actual performance, in fact far from it in most cases, but his resume will never reflect that. He has great people skills, a good image and presents himself very well. Mr. Delusional is intelligent, well-spoken, and poised. His resume is also impressive, perhaps not overly so because achievements beyond what might be reasonable could raise a red flag, but he certainly seems to have a background of interest and value to recruiters and clients alike.
Mr. Delusional also understands how recruiters work. He knows that because of the time constraints and activity levels inherent to the contingency search business, doing thorough reference and background checks on candidates isn't generally done until we get further into an interview process and interest has been established. We will present people we've met to employers prior to doing complete references based on a number of screening criteria. Even though we know that people do ‘fudge', we trust that they have represented their background accurately, especially once we've had "the honesty talk" in the initial screening process and cleared up any potential issues. That, combined with our own perceptions, experience, and knowledge, is usually enough upon which to base the referral to an employer.
Mr. Delusional is counting on this fact and he knows how to make a recruiter feel like he's heard every word and offers assurances that, "What you see is what you get with me." He has integrity. So, having conducted that initial screening, the recruiter feels comfortable that Mr. Delusional is a worthy contender for a variety of potential positions and when the opportunity arises, the recruiter presents him to a client and arranges an interview.
The employer is excited to meet Mr. D and the recruiter feels like it just may be a match made in heaven. The interview takes place, the follow-up is done, and of course, Mr. Delusional is excited and the employer is ready to go forward. He did great. What passes as his "documentation" is respectable and his presentation was flawless.
Of course, matches made in heaven are sometimes the stuff of fairy tales, and reality intervenes at some point in every fairy tale. This proves to be the case with Mr. Delusional. It can intervene in any number of ways. Perhaps the next day when the client calls the recruiter to schedule a second interview with Mr. Delusional, it turns out that he is stranded without his computer and needs to get the resume to other people in Corporate ASAP via FAX if necessary. He wants to move quickly. He calls the recruiter and says, "Do you have a hard copy of the resume you can Fax me? The recruiter, having the hard copy filed, says, "Of course."
Now, this recruiter works in a firm that has been around a while. Candidates apply and reapply over the years and a little light bulb goes off for this recruiter who hasn't been around for all those years. Wouldn't it be a great thing if Mr. Delusional had applied before and the old resume, if still on file, could be compared to the new resume as further evidence of how far he's come?
The recruiter hits the archives, and initially he's think he's struck gold. Mr. Delusional has applied before. Not once, not twice, but actually 3 previous times. Wow, this is better than he could have expected.
Here's where the fairy tale goes south. As it turns out, every resume tells a different story. Each story is progressively better, more enhanced, and more impressive. The problem is, not a single resume matches the others in terms of positions held, employers, or degrees. It seems that Mr. Delusional has perfected the art of misrepresentation over the years.
A recruiter is in a mighty uncomfortable situation at this point. What does he do? A good recruiter will confront it and call Mr. Delusional, just to make sure there's no rational explanation for all the discrepancies, and with this kind of candidate, the conversation will most assuredly go like this:
Recruiter: "We're ready to move forward, Mr. D. There's only one problem."
Mr. Delusional, concerned and affable as ever will say, "Whatever I need to do, just tell me. What's the issue?"
Recruiter responds: "I need to Fax your resume to the employer immediately, and in doing a file search, it seems you've applied at our firm before. In fact, I have 4 different versions of your resume sitting right in front of me on my desk. So, here's my dilemna, Mr. D. Which one should I send?"
After a long pause, Mr. Delusional will respond…"Ummmmmmm, can I call you right back?"
That will be the last the recruiter ever hears from Mr. Delusional. The recruiter will then immediately relay the information to his client with apologies, withdraw Mr. Delusional from contention, and move on to other candidates. Nine times out of ten, the employer will understand and appreciate the honesty because he's run into his own version of Mr. Delusional somewhere along the way.
As the search process becomes more sophisticated, employers and recruiters alike have more ways to check into that picture on the menu ever earlier in the process. With experience, we also know that if Mr. Delusional show up on the menu and just looks too good to be true, there's a pretty fair chance that he probably is, and we will find out. Hopefully, for the sake of all concerned, it will become apparent sooner rather than later, but rest assured, at some point it will become apparent.
Is this story just strange or is it true? You decide. I can tell you that I and a lot of other recruiters and employers keep resumes filed, sometimes for several years, and the paper trail can tell a very interesting story at times. The real point is, if you want to get hired, don't present yourself as the item on the menu that looks far better in the picture than on the plate. The real meal and the real deal will always tell the true story.
~~Mark Ste. Marie
Copyright 2009
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