@sk Jamie Varon: I lied on my LinkedIn profile

A A A Comments By Jamie Varon Wednesday, Mar 17 2010

Dear Jamie,

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I've been looking for a new job, and inflated my résumé and qualifications on my LinkedIn profile because I thought it could help me look attractive to other employers.

The only problem is that I forgot that I'm connected to certain people in my company, and now feel that it's really obvious I'm looking for a new job. I feel really guilty, but changing my profile again will only arouse further suspicions.

TooLinkedIn

Oh, God, you're one of those people, aren't you? The ones who say they are extremely proficient with Photoshop, but really all you know is Microsoft Paint. Did you inflate your qualifications to say you managed several people in the company, but really all you did was serve them coffee and maybe give the odd hand job in the bathroom? If anything, I'd be worried that your co-workers will find out that you're a liar and that you're claiming responsibility for the work they actually do. And if I were your co-workers, I'd start making you do the work you're saying you've done to see how quickly you suffocate in your web of lies. You're fantastic at creating high-quality PowerPoint presentations? Well, here are four for you to do. You're incredibly organized and efficient? Okay, I just took all my files out of the order they were once in, and now you have one hour to put them back into a system that works and then send a memo (without any typos) and explain the entire procedure to us. Chop, chop!

What's really obvious here is not that you're looking for a new job, but that you seem to think that embellishing your résumé is a smart idea. Eventually, your new employers will find out that you are a complete fraud and you'll be faced with consequences such as people laughing at you, your karma points going into the negative, and an inability to get laid by anyone even remotely attractive for a year. This is the grave you have dug for yourself.

Okay, I'm being a little hard on you. Here's the thing: If you're feeling that guilty, then just change your profile (again) to say whatever you want it to say, but be honest about your skills and qualifications. If anyone asks, just say that you were doing some cleaning up and updating. Believe me, most people are so self-involved that they wouldn't even notice if you were masturbating on the copy machine.

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