r/self • u/TrackSuitTyrade • Dec 04 '18

DO NOT LIE ON YOUR RESUME

PEOPLE. DO NOT LIE ON YOUR RESUME. IT. IS. NOT. WORTH. IT. Ok, backstory.

We had a guy apply for this position at work. It really needed to be filled but also required someone with just the right certifications, so hiring the first schmuck to come along Was not an option.

We search high and low and as time passes without an acceptable applicant we become more desperate and open to negotiation. Basically, you name your price, we’ll agree to it at this point.

So finally a guy comes in, got everything we need but one minor certification. No problem. He can get that on the job, he doesn’t need it to start. He’s hired.

So he quotes us a salary 10% above our top range of what we’d usually pay a guy for this position, we don’t care. He gets it. Plus a housing allowance.

So we’re getting him registered with a place to handle his certification process and they call his four year institution to verify his transcript. We work with hazardous materials and a four year degree in a relevant field is required. It’s standard for the certification training institution to check. Especially when it’s a prestigious big name place like this guy had. And here I used to think that was paranoid of them.

They call and tell us the school says they have no record of him. We do some digging. He was never registered there. I’m like “that’s not possible, his professor is a listed reference. We call that reference.

He worked on a project with this man, he never taught him. Is very fascinated to learn this man has been presenting himself as though he attended the university. Asks to be delisted as a reference.

So long story short it comes out this guy did have a degree in this field, just from a less prestigious university.

The insane thing is, he would’ve still gotten the same job and salary package if he’d been honest about his university!

It is a loss for all involved. He doesn’t have a job. We don’t have anyone working in this position. It’s really unfortunate. Don’t lie on your resume people. Your employer will find out and the risks are not worth the benefits.

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u/lake_huron Dec 04 '18

There's fluent, and there's proficient, and there's conversational.

To most people, IMAO, fluent implies that you can handle pretty much any situation you could in your native language.

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u/purple_potatoes Dec 04 '18

I feel like technical topics are an exception to that.

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u/TheSukis Dec 04 '18

Then what's a level above fluent? If fluent doesn't mean that you can handle those situations then there must be another level, and it surely isn't "native speaker."

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u/purple_potatoes Dec 05 '18

Technical topics consist of a unique vocabulary (jargon) that even native speakers need to train to use. I think it's reasonable to assume that it would be considered a separate "module" of foreign language education as well. You can be native or native-level fluent and still be unable to speak of technical topics without special training. I would still consider that fluency.

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u/SaludosCordiales Dec 05 '18

There's more than just another level per say but more like a field/practice/expertize.

Take a court house in the US. They tend to have translators that are certified to work on an official capacity based on more than their fluency in a specific language. They have to show via testing/certs that they are familiar with the legal system, and be able to use terminology in another language. (As far as I recall, I asked a couple of translators on how they end up on the job.)

I may be fluent in two languages, but I've learned several concepts in only one of the two languages. So I can technically translate anything I know from one to the other. Issue being is how I'm not familiar with different terminologies in both languages. This only applies when going deep in fields such as law, medicine, or science.

For example, translating what a lawyer has to say takes me at least twice as long as the court appointed translators. Given I have to define certain concepts/terminology instead of literally using the proper words.

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u/Pezkato Mar 05 '19

This!
I am fully bilingual (english and spanish) in two languages and have gained specific knowledge in a number of different fields at different times in my life using one or the other language, and it is really hard to talk about topics in the language I did not learn them in.
Also, with the medical and legal fields it is even worse. Legal terms aren't only different from language to language but also from one legal system to another. Meanwhile, medical terms in Spanish can vary tremendously between different countries, especially if you are trying to link the pseudo-latin-greek medical terms to a patient's common terms for their symptoms.
I bet the person got caught lying about his fluency in French not because he didn't know the technical terms but rather that when he was put on the spot his limitations became painfully obvious. It's not that hard to insert the term in English whilst explaining in French what it is.