Employers say 57% job seekers put false or incorrect information in resumes, mid-level professionals tend to fudge the most
December 22, 2015: “Fudging” or falsifying information, either by oversight or deliberately, is one of the most widespread mistakes that job seekers make in their resumes, reveals a JobBuzz.in survey of 97 employers spanning all major sectors across India.
The ‘JobBuzz Biggest Resume Mistakes Survey’ reveals that recruiters and hiring managers, on an average, spend less than 5 minutes on reviewing a resume. By this standard, an applicant has very little time to impress a recruiter. So the last thing one would want to do is to make an unnecessary mistake or falsify information. Yet, out of all the applications organizations receive every month, 40-60% of resumes have wrong or misleading information, said 55% hiring managers in the survey.
Of these, 80% employers from IT, telecom, ITeS and dotcoms and 70% employers from BFSI state that 40-60% of the resumes they receive invariably have incorrect information. In addition, nearly 70% of the surveyed automobile sector employers state that 20-40% of the resumes they get every month are flawed.
False info, typos galore
According to the JobBuzz.in survey, employers across India state that nearly 60% candidates include false or incorrect in their resumes. Also, nearly 50% recruiters and hiring managers said most applicants tend to omit important areas of their skill sets while 42% said most resumes do not use relevant job or profile-related keywords, making scanning resumes more difficult, leading to incorrect assessments.
However, there was unanimous agreement amongst all the employers surveyed that grammatical errors and typos are the most common mistakes made by candidates.
“Job seekers continually fail to understand the significance of a well-crafted resume. Your resume is the first introduction to the employer and represents your presentation clarity and diligence. Poor spelling and grammar is like going to a job interview in your pajamas – it can swiftly get your application rejected,” states Vivek Madhukar, COO, Times Business Solutions.
The other common resume mistakes, as stated by employers, are:
> Being text heavy– 40%
> Too vague (with no quantifiable accomplishments or tasks) – 35%
> Neglecting exact dates – 35%
> Stating duties rather than achievements – 33%
> Using very elaborate formatting and styles – 25%
> Information not being properly customized for the role applied – 19%
Middle-level misleads the most
Mid-level candidates tend to fib the most in their resumes, state 55% of the surveyed employers in the JobBuzz.in study.
Almost 25% employers say false or incorrect information is encountered regularly in senior-level applications while 20% feel the frequency of falsehood is highest among entry-level candidates.
An industry-wise break-up reveals that almost 90% of employers in IT, telecom and dotcom companies and 80% employers in the automobile and ITeS sectors find information provided by middle-level applicants “extremely unreliable”.
Nearly 65% employers in the manufacturing sectors say entry-level applicants state the maximum amount of dubious information, according to the JobBuzz survey.
Evasion of ‘skills’
Evidently, skill sets are the main areas which job seekers lie about the most. Over half of the surveyed India Inc. employers say skill sets are the most lied about piece of resume information. This is followed by falsifying job responsibilities mentioned by applicants in the resume, say 32% employers.
Other common errors caught by employers include:
> Incorrect job titles – 8%
> Wrong dates of employment – 4%
> Improper contact information – 4%
> False education qualifications- 2%
For more such information and insights please visit – http://jobbuzz.timesjobs.com/insight/
About JobBuzz.in :
JobBuzz is TimesJobs.com’s employee to employee community which helps jobseekers decide which company, industry and role is right for them by providing them company reviews, ratings, salary and interview information contributed by members who happen to be current or past employees of a company.
About TimesJobs.com:
TimesJobs.com, India’s leading career and recruitment portal, is one of the best-selling online ventures of the Times of India Group. Conceived and launched in 2004, TimesJobs.com currently has a candidate database of more than 25 million registered job-seekers across levels and functions who clock-in over 60 million page views a month.
TimesJobs.com is positioning itself as an engagement platform and knowledge resource for insights, information, analysis and opinions on the recruitment market. Well-known for its product innovations and unmatched deliverables, TimesJobs.com has pioneered the platforms of:
– JobBuzz.in for candidate engagement with company reviews and ratings
– TechGig.com as India’s leading IT network for careers, coding and competitions
– StepAhead for career assessment and enhancement services
– RecruiteX as the definitive demand and supply recruitment index
– The TJinsite knowledge series and a lot more.
TimesJobs.com serves a corporate customer base of more than 25,000 clients from across the globe. It has been serving clients like HCL, IBM, Yamaha, Godrej, HSBC, Mahindra, Bajaj Allianz, TCS and Thomson Reuters to name a few.