[Help!] Paranoia or legitimate worry?

I'd love to get some thoughts on whether I'm being paranoid or should legitimately be worried.

On my resume I exaggerated one line from my previous summer experience re: modeling. I currently have 3 offers on the table and had an interview today for OCR. However, do you think the interviewer will do a background check on the details on my last summer experience by calling my previous employer (He asked a lot of question about it, may have come off hesitant at some points?) ? Will me exaggerating/lying about 1 line really bite me in the ass?

If the interviewer hypothetically does find out after calling my previous employer- Do you think he'll call the current companies I have offers from and tell them that I didn't have modeling experience even though I said I did? Are my other offers at risk now because I lied about one line of work experience? (I didn't lie about the internship or company itself)

I know exaggerating and lying about work experience details is a terrible thing to do because of the potential liabilities. However, I'd still love to get your thoughts on this.

6 Comments
 

Don't worry about it.

  1. If they call previous employers, legally they can only ask if you worked there. The person on the other end of the phone may provide some color to you as an employee (if they remember you) but it's doubtful that they'll knock you if they don't mention modeling.

  2. The interviewer will not call other companies you have offers from to rat you out. This should be obvious but I can tell you're on the bad end of a bad trip. How would the interviewer know what companies you have offers from? Why would they waste time trying to sabotage the career of the would-be new kid?

All of this being said, if you show up to work and don't know how to spell Excel, you're going to look like a dummy. Honestly (hehe), if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.

 
Most Helpful
"John Pierpont" If they call previous employers, legally they can only ask if you worked there.

Where do you get this? The interviewer can ask whatever they want when they check references. It's the previous employer who needs to be careful about what they say. The concern for the previous employer is, should anything they say be construed as negative, they've opened themselves up to defamation lawsuits where they have to prove what they said was factual. Many employers avoid this altogether and refuse to do anything but confirm dates of employment.

I do agree with your general thesis that OP is fine. It's highly unlikely this question would even come up when checking references, and even less likely the previous employer would discredit OP's resume. To your point, I see this as 100% within the acceptable bounds of resume exaggeration.

 

Thank you for your thoughts bleujob, really appreciate it. I did mention the name of one of the banks when he asked about the specific offer, but based on your first point then I don't have to stress out too much.

Thanks a lot!

 

No need to worry. For future reference, you shouldn't even take it out completely of your resume because you could've potentially been doing that modeling on your own downtime. You can frame it as "performed case study" or rather than you building the model from scratch, you simply revised its assumptions and discussed with an analyst. Or if the internship was absolute BS you could just keep the modeling on your resume, and then practice modeling outside of work through Wall Street Prep or BIWS.

 

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