Have you lied in a job interview?

yup! I never finished high school but I always say I did. Nobody has called me on it.

Do you take part in any recreational drugs?
No Sir. :P

Aside from that im pretty honest with them.

Never been any consequences because they only drug test if your injured on the job.

I’ve been not hired due to honesty, e.g.:
“So is customer service your ideal career field?”
“Well, no, eventually I’d like to…”

Yes. I said I knew how to use a computer program that I had never used. I read a book on it that night and went in the next day and took a skills test in it and passed.

@Bri_L
That’s pretty good going. I’ve known people who ‘padded’ their knowledge levels for interviews and in the end had to turn the job down because they knew they couldn’t bluff their way through it.

Question: “Why do you want to work at Company X?”

Lie: “I truly believe in Company X’s mission and hope to blah blah blah things that sound good.”

The real answer is—always—I need to get paid, asshole.

ABSOLUTELY NOT!
I was raised, to live each day as if someone is looking over your shoulder! More importantly, I do not like being lied too.

I don’t think I have ever made it through an interview without spreading a tremendous amount of bullshit.

My favorite is “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

@ wildflower – I felt really guilty about it. I had moved to Davis, CA and needed a job. They didn’t have the illustration program I did use but I was good with programs so I did that. I ended up telling my boss later and apologizing. I felt terrible. Ever since then I have instead said that I have never had trouble learning programs instead.

I have an interview coming up on Tuesday, so I will answer this question after that. I’m sure I will feed them some bull, I just don’t know how much!!

I’m probably (hopefully) a little on the skeptical side, but I can’t sit through an interview without wondering which parts are true and which are not….unfortunately it also makes me paranoid when I go to an interview myself and I always think they’ll see through any fibs I throw out there – which is probably why I wasn’t successful in the last 2–3 applications.

Eh, interviews are the worst. I feel so fake, it makes me not want to work. I wish the whole not-working to working transition could be like snapping one’s fingers or going back to school.
Only whit lies, nothing large, and usually by accident – like I’ll realize what I said after the fact, usually along the likes of dates, names, etc – which I make up instead of remembering :p

GOOD LUCK SCAMP!!!!!

Never

just over exaggerate the truth and you’ll be fine. :)

Thanks Bri_L !

No, I don’t lie for interviews.
Ones which I have to lie for are probably not a good fit for me anyway.

In fact, I was at one interview where the interviewer said to me, “I’m sorry, we can’t really hire you. You have too much integrity.”

(I think it was because I was trying to tell them that I wanted to sell a product (a business English program) that I was proud of; and if it had flaws, I would want to fix those flaws.)

@ lifeflame – That is a great way to look at it. I once had an interview where the guy showed up 45 min. late walking his dog. didn’t introduce himself, just asked if I was here for the design job. looked at my resume and said you’ll never be a designer and here’s why. When he finished. I thanked him for his opinion and said your half right, I’ll never be your designer. He was in shock. He tried to get me to stay. offered to take me to lunch. Called the office that set up the job interview 3 times in the 30 min. it took to get back home. They had been trying for 9 months to fill this position and this guy was just a bastard. They ended up asking me to write a detailed description of what the interview was like so they could get rid of him.

not a good fit.

Wow….and I thought our HR was bad…

@Bri_L Wow! What an idiot he was!! And good for you for putting him in his place.

I have interviewed dozens of people in my career and not in the HR department but hiring for my own department(s) or at one law firm where I did the initial interview of any candidate who was not an attorney.
I have been lied to repeatedly, I have learned to recognize and I have learned how to deal with it in the interview process. Believe me, if you do this (interview) often enough you learn when someone is trying to bullshit you.
The problem is that sometimes a lie is a deal-breaker and sometimes it really doesn’t matter. If your resume says you have a college or graduate degree, you better have that degree or you will be fired shortly after you start the job or the offer will be rescinded.

If you talk about having some kind of business experience, like leading a project or a development team, then I expect some kind of embellishment about your role and can live with the fact that you were on the team and not the leader.

I try not to ask any of the nonsensical HR type questions like “where will you be in 5 years? – I am really not interested in that, I am interviewing because I need someone with a specific set of skills to do a specific job and I am not trying to be your career builder. I am interviewing you because your resume indicates that you can do what I need done. If I need an accounts receivable person, then I want that experience and I am not really worried about if you are promotable. Interviewing is a pain in the ass and I am only doing it to fill a need or solve a problem or deal with increased volume or responsibility in my department.

The other thing I would add about lying. It is my opinion that more people talk themselves out of jobs at interviews than talk themselves into jobs. If you are sitting in my office, then I have a need to hire someone. Hopefully it will be you and I can stop interviewing people who don’t fit for whatever reason and I can concentrate on the other facets of my job. If you sit there and tell me a visible or obvious lie, then what does that tell me: in the future can I trust you to tell me what I need to hear, not what you think I need to hear, Will you take responsibility for your own errors or will you lie aboout it?

So the candidate talks himself or herself out of a job by saying the wrong thing, or not having the right attitude or personality, or by just being plain obnoxious. To repeat, I can not remember ever commencing an interview thinking that I hope this person is a loser or a liar so I have a reason not to make a job offer and I can go on doing this with another 12 people until I find someone that I want to hire.

SRM

I know what you mean smorgan. I’ve been involved in interviews for a few years now. Unfortunately we have legislation that means we have to ask all candidates for the position, the same questions and they can not touch on anything that could potentially be ground of discrimination, so if a candidate volunteers that they have kids, I can’t ask them how that affects their availability for working irregular hours.

Getting a feeling of people’s personality and honesty is often tricky in these situations. Therefore, I for one am quite big on doing informal activities, invite them to lunch or give a tour of the office. That’s when you see more of them.

*them=their true self

@ SRM Thanks for the tips from the other side. I have been on that side myself as a manager. I for smaller companies (75 and under). I tend to lean towards people showing me what they can do as well. NOT what the books or articles say they should say. I will even go as far as to say that to them. You tell me about you as a worker, not what an article you read on the web said you should say about yourself as a worker.

Yes, I have lied, but not major lies. Lies like I love the insurance field or customer service because I needed the job.
Now, I do the hiring and ppl lie to me all the time. They lie about their experience, they lie about everything. And usually, they don’t last the probationary period. I tend to hire ppl that are well-spoken, friendly and eager to work. Yes, sometimes, I’ve been dead wrong…c’et la vie.

I always stretch the truth and tell them what they want to hear. I usually just ebellish my skills and experience, but once I told them that I had experience in running a “card punch” machine, when I had never even seen one! I wasn’t too worried, because every machine is a little different, so figured they would have to train me anyway. In a few week I was the best card puncher in the office, so it worked out okay.

The object of the game is to sell yourself in an interview, so don’t be so worried about honesty and worry more about presenting yourself as a wonderful commodity. After all, which car would you buy, the one whose salesman was brutally honest about it’s tendency to have electrical problems, or the one whose salesman told you that it could do everything but tuck you in bed at night.

Actually I have it was just a basic health question I have a medical condition or thought i MIGHT’ve had one but didn’t bother telling them my maybes but found out two months later after they hired. so maybe technically no I haven’t lied. They asked if i was okay for standing for long periods of time.

This is off subject a bit, but my “favorite” interview question is “Why should we hire you instead of one of our other candidates?” WTH??? I always want to say, “Well, give me the other candidates phone numbers so I can call them and find out what they know and don’t know, then I can answer that question!”

I never out right lie. I just BS a little .
When they ask ridiculous questions they deserve it. I think they expect it.

Like, “Why do you want this job?”...huh??