Nearly Half of Employers Have Caught a Lie on a Resume, CareerBuilder.com Survey Shows

CHICAGO, July 30, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Is your resume more fiction than fact? Experts warn bending the truth can cost you the job. Although only 8 percent of workers admitted to stretching the truth on their resumes, nearly half (49 percent) of hiring managers reported they caught a candidate lying on their resume. Of these employers, 57 percent said they automatically dismissed the applicant. This is according to CareerBuilder.com's latest survey of more than 3,100 hiring managers and over 8,700 workers nationwide conducted from May 22 to June 13, 2008.

Thirty-six percent of employers who received falsified applications said they still considered the candidate, but did not hire him/her. A small percentage (6 percent) ended up hiring the applicant.

The most common lies discovered on a resume, according to the survey, include:

    -- Embellished responsibilities -- 38 percent
   -- Skill set -- 18 percent
   -- Dates of employment -- 12 percent
   -- Academic degree -- 10 percent
   -- Companies worked for -- 7 percent
   -- Job title -- 5 percent

Industries experiencing higher incidences of resume fabrications included Hospitality, Transportation/Utilities and Information Technology. Sixty-percent of employers in Hospitality, 59 percent in Transportation/Utilities and 57 percent in IT reported they found lies on resumes. Government had the lowest incident at 45 percent.

"Even the slightest embellishment can come back to haunt you and ruin your credibility," said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder.com. "If you're concerned about gaps in employment, your academic background or skill sets, invention is not the answer. Use your cover letter strategically to tell your story, focusing on your strengths and accomplishments and explaining any areas of concern if needed."

CareerBuilder.com asked hiring managers to share the most memorable or outrageous lies they came across on resumes. Examples include:

    1) Claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family
   2) Invented a school that did not exist
   3) Submitted a resume with someone else's photo inserted into the document
   4) Claimed to be a member of Mensa
   5) Claimed to have worked for the hiring manager before, but never had
   6) Claimed to be the CEO of a company when the candidate was an hourly
      employee
   7) Listed military experience dating back to before he was born
   8) Included samples of work, which the interviewer actually did
   9) Claimed to be Hispanic when he was 100 percent Caucasian
   10) Claimed to have been a professional baseball player

Haefner recommends the following tips to make your resume memorable for the right reasons:

Apply early. Nearly one-in-ten employers receive more than 50 applications for open positions on average and one-in-five said they are receiving more resumes than last year. Get your foot in the door before other candidates by signing up for job alerts that automatically email job listings to you as they become available.

Stand out from the crowd. Forty-three percent of hiring managers said they spend one minute or less looking at a resume when first reviewing applications; 14 percent spend less than 30 seconds. Make sure you are highlighting specific accomplishments, quantifying results whenever possible, to showcase how you put your skills into action and benefitted previous employers.

Use keywords. Hiring managers often use electronic scanners to rank candidates based on a keyword search of applications, so make sure to pepper keywords from the job posting into your resume as they apply to your experience. The terms employers search for most often are:

    -- problem-solving and decision-making skills (50 percent)
   -- oral and written communications (44 percent)
   -- customer service or retention (34 percent)
   -- performance and productivity improvement (32 percent)
   -- leadership (30 percent)
   -- technology (27 percent)
   -- team-building (26 percent)
   -- project management (20 percent)
   -- bilingual (14 percent)

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 3,169 hiring managers and human resource professionals (employed full-time; not self-employed; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions); and 8,785 U.S. employees (employed full-time; not self-employed) ages 18 and over between May 22 and June 13, 2008, respectively (percentages for some questions are based on a subset U.S. employers or employees, based on their responses to certain questions). With a pure probability sample of 3,169 and 8,785, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.74 percentage points and +/- 1.05 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

About CareerBuilder.com

CareerBuilder.com is the nation's largest online job site with more than 23 million unique visitors and over 1.6 million jobs. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (GCI:

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MSFT 26.23, +0.12, +0.5%) , the company offers a vast online and print network to help job seekers connect with employers. CareerBuilder.com powers the career centers for more than 1,600 partners, including 140 newspapers and leading portals such as AOL and MSN. More than 300,000 employers take advantage of CareerBuilder.com's easy job postings, 28 million-plus resumes, Diversity Channel and more. CareerBuilder.com and its subsidiaries operate in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.careerbuilder.com.

     Media Contact:
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    Jennifer Grasz
    773-527-1164
    Jennifer.Grasz@careerbuilder.com
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INSTANT VIEW - WTO talks collapse amid farm stand-off

GENEVA (Reuters) - Marathon talks on a new wave of trade liberalisation collapsed on Tuesday after nine days of intense but ultimately fruitless negotiations.

Following are some reactions, with latest at top:

ADRIAN VAN DEN HOVEN, TRADE DIRECTOR AT EUROPE'S MAIN EMPLOYERS' GROUP, BUSINESSEUROPE

"Obviously, we are disappointed that the talks came this far only to break down.

"We are not sure what is going to happen next in terms of WTO. We don't want to sound alarmist, because we have seen this kind of crush in the past.

"Considering how close the talks were to reaching an agreement, it would be foolish to let everything fall apart."

CARIN SMALLER, INSTITUTE FOR AGRICULTURE AND TRADE POLICY, NGO

"This deal did not collapse over small technicalities. It was doomed to fail from the start. There is no political support for what is on the table: not from India or France or Argentina or South Africa. Following the same WTO model is impossible now: governments are no longer willing to sacrifice other concerns strictly for the sake of trade. People are on the streets rioting over food and energy prices. The business world is in a state of shock over the financial crisis. These are the problems that governments have to focus on. And the Doha Round cannot help them."

MATTHEW COGHLAN, ADVISER TO CHRISTIAN AID

"We applaud the stand that developing countries have taken throughout the talks in defending the livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable farmers. We hope that any future talks can place development firmly back on the agenda."

EDWARD GRESSER, DIRECTOR, TRADE AND GLOBAL MARKETS PROJECT, PROGRESSIVE POLICY INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC

"The time for developing countries to strike a deal over agriculture was now, not later. This year's high prices created a window for lower rich-country subsidies and tariffs that may not open again, and it's unfortunate that the big developing countries didn't take the opportunity."

"This fourth collapse after Cancun, Hong Kong and Potsdam suggests that the WTO members may need to rethink the agenda rather than try again with the same program. In particular, they might move agricultural reform out of the center for a few years, and focus instead on big newly emerging industries - energy/environmental industries and medical equipment for example - where attitudes are less entrenched and emotional."

SHERMAN KATZ, TRADE SCHOLAR AND DIRECTOR OF OUTREACH, PETERSON INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS, WASHINGTON, DC

"The underlying problem from the U.S. perspective is the readiness of developing countries, such as India, to open their markets to higher levels of agriculture imports. In the current environment of understandable anxiety in the American workforce about trade, neither this (Bush) Administration nor the next one, whether Democrat or Republican, will accept terms for a Doha deal that does not expand significantly market access for both farm and industrial goods as well as services. And that means strong resistance against `special safeguards' in poor nations that can prevent such access from taking place."

MICHAEL WOOLFOLK, A SENIOR CURRENCY STRATEGIST, BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON, NEW YORK

"The impact on the U.S. economy and on the U.S. dollar for now will be an indirect one. The dollar has benefited in the past from globalization and freer trade. If this means that more barriers will be imposed and countries will take the side of protectionism, it may hurt exports and therefore the economy and the dollar."

JAMES DUNSTERVILLE, GRAIN ANALYST, GENEVA-BASED AGRINEWS

"Life goes on. The WTO talks have broken down for so many years that the surprise will come if they succeed not when they break down."

"The breakdown is not a change, only a breakthrough would have been one."

MICHAEL T. DARDA, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MKM PARTNERS, GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

"I think it's a strong negative and it really follows on the heels of a retreat from globalization and trade that were really the building blocks for the prosperity of the last several decades. It's scary.

"The last thing that we need right now, as we are dealing with the unwinding of a massive credit bubble, is to turn our backs on trade and move into a protectionist stance. It would be a huge blow to the global economy and very negative for the world's poor."

BRIAN BETHUNE, U.S. ECONOMIST, GLOBAL INSIGHT, WALTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

"These agricultural trade issues have been in talks for years. It's really a tough situation because of the large trade protection offered to the farm sector in various forms and guises for many years. It's hard to rein in these subsidies."

"There doesn't seem too much progress on this. It's more important now with some of the shortages of global food supply. Something's got to be done to improve this to reduce price distortions."

"The progress on (agricultural) ag-trade is incremental. It's not going to be revolutionary. Frequently there are these breakdowns. They often go back to it again. There is a higher sense of urgency."

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Bush Signs Sweeping Housing Bill

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — President Bush signed into law on Wednesday a huge package of housing legislation that included broad authority for the Treasury Department to safeguard the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies and a plan to help hundreds of thousands of troubled borrowers avoid losing their homes.

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Mr. Bush signed the legislation, which Congress approved last week, shortly after 7 a.m. in the Oval Office, the deputy White House press secretary, Tony Fratto, said.

The law authorizes the Treasury to rescue the mortgage finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, should they verge on collapse, potentially by spending tens of billions in federal monies. Together, the companies own or guarantee nearly half of the nation’s $12 trillion in mortgages.

Partly to accommodate the rescue plan for the mortgage companies, the bill raises the national debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion, an increase of $800 billion. The bill also creates significant liabilities and risks for taxpayers, that are virtually impossible to calculate.

“We look forward to put in place new authorities to improve confidence and stability in markets, and to provide better oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Mr. Fratto said. “The Federal Housing Administration will begin to implement new policies intended to keep more deserving American families in their homes.”

A half-dozen top advisers to the president, including the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., who was the leading advocate of the legislation in the administration attended the signing. But it was not a particularly auspicious occasion given the precarious state of the nation’s financial system, and the pressure that Mr. Bush came under to sign a bill that contained provisions he had opposed.

Though the legislation was the product of months of intensive work by lawmakers in both parties and has been hailed as the most aggressive intervention by the government into the housing market in more than a generation, perhaps since the New Deal, no members of Congress were invited to the signing.

The enactment of the legislation comes in the same week that the administration announced that Mr. Bush would leave behind a record $482 billion deficit, which will probably grow substantially if home values continue to decline and if there are further reductions in corporate and personal income as many economists are forecasting for the rest of the year. Because of the growing deficit, Democrats said, the debt ceiling had to be lifted regardless of the housing bill.

The new housing law includes a plan aimed at helping as many as 400,000 homeowners pay off their troubled mortgages and replace them with more affordable, government-insured loans. The program is voluntary and the lenders must agree to take a sizable loss, reducing the principal of each loan, before they can be refinanced.

The law authorizes the Federal Housing Administration to insure up to the $300 billion in such loans but the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that only $68 billion of that authority is likely to be used. The original lenders will have to pay upfront fees into an insurance fund, and borrowers will pay continuing insurance premiums of 1.5 percent a year to insulate taxpayers against losses from defaults.

The budget office has estimated that 35 percent of the refinanced loans will end up in trouble again.

The authority for the Treasury Department to help Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is limited only by the debt ceiling. The budget office has said that a $25 billion expense should appear on the federal budget for the next two fiscal years, representing its best estimate of how much the program will end up costing taxpayers.

But the budget office said there was a better than 50 percent chance that the rescue authority would not be used, and there would be no cost, while there was a 5 percent chance that one or both of the mortgage giants would lose another $100 billion or more, costing taxpayers a vast sum.

Some experts have said that the law was wrong-headed in its effort to retain the hybrid nature of the mortgage finance giants, which are private companies with publicly traded stock, but which now have an explicit guarantee of help from the government — an arrangement that critics say privatizes the profits but socializes the risk and any losses.

David M. Walker, the former comptroller general of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office who is now president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said that Mr. Bush might have been unwise to sign the measure.

“Providing authority to the secretary of the Treasury to extend credit or to buy stock is one that will end up costing the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars,” Mr. Walker said in an interview earlier this week.

Mr. Walker noted that other government interventions in the private market, including a rescue of the Chrysler automobile company had provided an opportunity for taxpayers to profit. But when it comes to the mortgage giants, he said, there is no upside.

“The way this is structured,” he said. “It’s only a matter of how much the taxpayers are going to lose.”

Supporters of the legislation — including Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, the leaders of the banking committee, and Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, the main author of the legislation in the House — say the law represents the best way to help stabilize the housing market, potentially putting a solid floor under declining prices.

The bill includes an array of other aid for troubled borrowers, and about $15 billion in housing-related tax breaks. It also includes nearly $4 billion grants to local governments to buy and refurbished foreclosed properties, which Mr. Bush had opposed even as he signed the measure. The White House views that provision as a giveaway to banks and other lenders who own the seized properties.

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