It may help you get the job, but you may pay for it later.
Many applicants try to increase their chances of landing a job by embellishing -- or downright lying about -- their experience or credentials. Although this may help them get the job, it is a risky strategy for a number of reasons.
Most obviously, if the employer ever finds out about the falsehoods, the employer can fire the offending individual immediately. And that person might have a more difficult time landing the next job with the black mark of a termination on his or her record.
And there is an additional, more sinister consequence: If the employer ever treats the individual unlawfully -- for example, terminates the individual's employment because the individual is a woman or is Latino -- the employer can escape liability by pointing to the lies and embellishments and saying the individual never should have been hired in the first place. Courts agree, reasoning that employees who lied to get a job cannot later come to court and claim the employer did them wrong.
The employer tactic is called the After-Acquired Evidence Theory. Conduct that has been held sufficiently serious to be admitted as after-acquired evidence has included:
* falsifying company records
* failing to list a previous employer on a resumé
* failing to admit being terminated for cheating on timecards
* failing to reveal a prior conviction for a felony
* lying about education and experience on a job application
* fabricating a college degree during an interview, and
* removing and copying the company's confidential financial statements.
If you did lie on your job application or resumé, however, you may not be completely out of luck. Your employer can use the misinformation as a defense only if it was truly related to your job duties or performance. The employer must be able to show that you would have been fired -- or not hired in the first place -- if he or she had known the truth. Proving this type of second-guessing may not be easy.
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