You’ve been invited to a job interview with your dream company and you’re wondering if “being completely yourself” is the right strategy to follow to land the job. You may be tempted to embellish reality, or even to lie. But is this really wise on your part?
Job interviews can be a lot of pressure for some. Indeed, the fact that this is a completely unknown and highly competitive field is not reassuring for those who doubt their diplomas, their experiences or their abilities. It is therefore important to prepare well beforehand and to know whether boosting your skills or inventing professional experiences during interviews is a good idea or, on the contrary, an option to be completely ruled out. We help you see things more clearly!
Job interview: should you answer all the recruiter’s questions?
It is important to know before any job interview that you are not required to answer all of the recruiter’s questions. If the latter is intrusive and asks you questions about your sexual orientation, your religious beliefs or even your romantic situation, you have every right to refuse to provide an answer. The law authorizes you to do so and forbids him from questioning you on such personal matters.
But if you don’t mind answering them, there’s nothing stopping you from doing so. If, however, you feel that your response has caused you harm, you may consider taking legal action against the company.
It is important to note that some questions are completely prohibited. A recruiter cannot ask you if you plan to have children. If the lack of response on such personal subjects is a criterion that is detrimental to your application, then you will have avoided a company with a toxic environment.
Lying in a job interview: lies to avoid
If, in a job interview, you have the right not to answer certain questions considered too personal, you are also required to demonstrate sincerity on certain points.
Here are the topics you should not lie about during a job interview:
Your professional experiences and your academic background
Recruiters are more interested in the different positions you have held during your career. They are also based on your academic background to judge the coherence of your different experiences and the skills acquired. Lying about these things can carry a big risk. The world of work is much too small, all it takes is for your recruiter to know an employee working in “your old company” and they will quickly realize that you are not sincere. He can also ask for references and call or contact the former company, via its network or reception, to verify that you worked there.
This is therefore very risky territory in which one should definitely not venture. Coming across as a liar in the eyes of a recruiter will make you lose all your chances of being selected. “ It is one thing to try to sell yourself and make all the functions you have performed attractive, and another to lie about your diplomas and your experiences which are essential to carry out the required work.estimates Vanessa Robinson, director of research at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development at eFinancial Careers.
Your key skills
Lying about your academic and professional background necessarily implies inventing new skills. If you are ultimately selected for the position, having lied about your skills will harm you much more than anything else. Unless you are a genius, you will not be able to complete your missions correctly. Your incompetence will be seen by all the teams. You will thus be the center of attention of your colleagues who will not hesitate to judge you. Your manager will quickly see the picture and it could turn against you for your next interviews. Imagine that your future employer calls your former manager to whom you lied?
If you are applying to finance, you have even less interest in lying about your past experiences or your qualifications. Recruiters are extremely vigilant. They carry out extremely long and demanding technical tests and interviews. Some do not hesitate to call on verification companies, such as Verif diploma, or even detectives. “ Banking remains a world where trust is important, particularly with regard to long-term relationships with customers. Which, with the strengthening of risk control policies, hardly encourages lying », concludes the British clinical psychologist and journalist Oliver James, author of Office Politics: How to Thrive in a World of Lying, Backstabbing and Dirty Tricks.
Lies allowed in job interviews
In interviews, certain questions are very recurring (qualities, defects, salary expectations, etc.). The answers you provide will not really be verifiable. You can therefore allow yourself to embellish the truth and play your last cards to put all the chances on your side to get the job.
If the recruiter asks you “what are your faults?” “, it is wiser to avoid talking about impulsivity, shyness or even perfectionism. These defects are indeed crippling and will cost you dearly. All of the faults that you are going to cite must be expressed via a concrete example of one of your past experiences. We recommend that you transform a flaw into a very important quality in an unstable world.
Here, it’s not really about lying, but rather about omitting certain flaws that could harm you. If you are already aware enough of these faults to hide them, we recommend that you work on yourself to get rid of them for good!
Another lie you can get away with is about your previous salary. By doing this, two scenarios present themselves to you: either the recruiter absolutely wants you to join the company and will align with your offer, or he will be well informed about the salaries offered by your former company and will give you a figure way too low. However, you should not be too greedy, at the risk of losing the job.
The limits of lying in a job interview
Lying on your CV or during an interview carries big risks. HR teams necessarily carry out checks. This is now part of their missions. By telling lies, you are sure to play with fire and endanger the trust that should normally exist between an employer and his employee. “ If I realize that a candidate has lied to me about something, I necessarily question everything they told me », specifies Jean-Marie Cousty, senior finance consultant at Hudson at eFinancial Careers.
In conclusion, sincerity in a job interview remains the key word. The lies will cost you too much and, even if they get you the job, you will be faced with tasks that you will be incapable of carrying out.
