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Somewhere between ambition and desperation, the job seeker faces a choice: tell the truth or bend it just enough to land that next big gig. And, as it turns out, a lot of people choose the latter.
Picture this: You’re at a coffee shop, laptop open, finessing your resume. That two-month temp job at a marketing firm? It’s suddenly a “strategic branding consultancy.” The summer waiting tables? Now it’s “customer relations management.” The line between exaggeration and fabrication blurs, but hey — everyone does it, right?
Turns out, yeah, they do. According to a January 2025 survey from Resume Builder, a staggering 44% of Americans admit they’ve lied in the hiring process. That’s nearly half of job seekers playing fast and loose with the facts, tweaking their skills, inflating their experience, or in some cases, altering their very identity.
Of the 2,000 job applicants surveyed, 24% confessed to fibbing on their resumes, 19% during interviews, and 6% in their cover letters. And what do they lie about? Mostly the things that recruiters love to hear:
- Years of experience (38%)
- Skills and abilities (34%)
- Lengths of previous positions held (32%)
Millennials take the top spot as the most likely to twist the truth, with 29% admitting to resume embellishments, compared to 27% of Gen Xers, 20% of Gen Zers, and just 13% of Boomers. And when it comes to gender, men (30%) are more likely than women (20%) to stretch the truth.
But the lies don’t stop at credentials. Some applicants are rewriting their own backstory. A surprising 9% have lied about their disability status, 7% about their race or ethnicity, and 6% about being a veteran. Why? To level the playing field, they say. When people feel that honesty puts them at a disadvantage, bending the truth starts to feel like survival.
For a lot of job seekers, deception actually pays off. Four in ten who lied during the hiring process landed a job because of it. And once they got through the door, the benefits didn’t stop:
- 64% say their lies helped them succeed professionally
- 25% say dishonesty landed them a higher salary than they otherwise would’ve gotten
Resume Builder’s Chief Career Advisor, Stacie Haller, sees this as a symptom of a broken hiring system. “Modern hiring processes often drive some job seekers to misrepresent themselves. When companies prioritize years of experience over actual ability, people feel pressured to embellish. If organizations shifted their focus to skills-based assessments, we might see less incentive for dishonesty.”
Of course, not everyone gets away with it. For 12%, the lie caught up with them — whether that meant a rescinded offer (4%), getting fired (2%), or disciplinary action (5%). And for an unlucky 1%, the bluff backfired spectacularly, leaving them overwhelmed in a job they weren’t actually qualified to do.
But that doesn’t seem to be stopping the next wave of job seekers. Looking ahead, 11% of applicants in 2025 say they already plan to lie in their upcoming applications. The cycle continues.
So what’s the takeaway? Lying might work —for a while. But when the dust settles, a solid career is built on real skills, real experience, and real integrity.
Haller offers this final piece of advice: “If you don’t meet all the qualifications, don’t fake it — frame it. Highlight your strengths, show what you bring to the table, and demonstrate your ability to learn. Honesty and authenticity will take you further in the long run than any fabricated bullet point on a resume.”
In other words, tell your story. Just, you know, make sure it’s one you can back up.