Lied To Prospective Employer, Think They'll Find Out?

So I'm currently employed at Company X and want to get out. I've applied at Company Y and have had a bunch of success - they're very interested in me.

Company Y is a client of Company X. This shouldn't be an issue normally, especially because I actively applied for the opening and it was done through a recruiting agency and I didn't know it was Company Y until further in the process, meaning that Company Y cannot be at fault for poaching employees in any way.

Anyways, I lied about my start date at Company X (I said June 2010 instead of June 2011 - yes I've only been working here for under 6 months). I told them they don't have permission to contact my current employer because it could jeopardize my current employment situation.

I strongly believe that lying about this allowed me to get my foot in the door and that I would not have been able to otherwise. Both myself and the prospective employer agree this is an amazing fit. I was recommended to lie about this by my dad who has been in management for decades and said it shouldn't be a problem.

Now I'm sort of freaking out. I'm worried that they'll offer me the position, I'll accept and quit at Company X, then they'll check my date of hire after offering me the job, discover I lied, not believe me when I exhaust one of two options - insist I've been working there since 2010 or claim they misunderstood and I always said 2011 - and recant the offer or fire me, depending how far along in the process we are.

This is pretty much worst case scenario but what is the likelihood of this happening? I'm sort of starting to freak out about it. Was it a dumb idea or actually smart to do?

In the unlikely event it gets mentioned sometime: "oops, I'm sorry i misspoke/ made a small typo, yes I began on 2010"

If you are a valued employee, this isn't enough to get you fired. Of course, I am a nice guy who laughs at the strictures of corporate America.

was this in writting, or did you tell somebody?

me, any example of dishonestly, I would be pissed off. 3 months or so is understandable, a year is not.

It was both on my resume and I told them in the interview. I don't think I really have a way out of this if they find out so I was just wondering what the chances are of them finding out after they offer me the position. I'm fairly confident that they wouldn't contact my current employer while I'm still here even just to verify employment dates.

This will be entirely dependent on the company. Every company has different policies on this sort of thing, the larger the company the more policies they are going to have. Without you naming the companies involved, which you understandably can't do, we would just be guessing. There is no way to predict whether they will ever find out or if it will cost you the job if they do.

What you need to do is come up with the possible risks/rewards for how to remedy this. I see three approaches how to handle this problem.

1. Call up the person you interviewed with and inform him there was an error on your resume and that when you spoke to him you mistakenly said 2010 instead of 2011. Do not further lie and say it was an accident, but don't admit it was outright falsification. Just say it was an error and you wanted to correct it as you've been reviewing your resume and you're really excited to work with him and his company, blah blah blah.

2. Shut up and never address it. Hope he never calls your company to verify anything and that the lie is never uncovered. You'll always have a nagging fear in the back of your mind that they might uncover it someday and you realize that - depending on your jurisdiction - lying in the hiring process is grounds for termination without benefits and you'd forfeit your unvested retirement contributions and would be ineligible for unemployment; inevitably leading to a downward spiral where you are unemployable in your chosen field and you have to resort to giving hand jobs to tourists in the alley behind the Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

3. While still at your current company break into the HR managers office and alter your employment records to show you were hired in 2010. You'll also have to produce fake pay stubs for the year you weren't there, so make friends with the guy who runs payroll and offer to perform sexual services if he'll print out a year's worth of pay stubs for you. You'll also have to produce fake IRS tax returns for 2010 showing income, as well as any other documents to prove your employment. Anyone at Company X who has actual knowledge of your date of employment will, of course, have to be eliminated. I suggest scoring some heroin and then murdering those people in their sleep with an overdose of same. Arson from a faulty electrical switch in the middle of the night, burning the person and his or her entire family to death in their sleep is also a viable option.

Personally, I'd probably go with number 1, but that's only because I don't like giving handjobs.

Lol well said Harvey.

If it were me, I'd probably be a little more vague and just send an email such as:

"Dear X,

I was reviewing my resume and realized that there was an error in my employment history. I started at company X in 2011, not 2010. I am not certain if this error is on the copy I sent to you, but I wanted to go ahead and clarify this just to be sure."

Not suggesting that this is the best route, it's simply want my natural instinct would be.

Lies that are easy to check up on you should never tell. But since you've already lied, just don't say anything. If you are going to need security clearance, or directly handle a ton of money ie a bank, they will do a background check.

For other jobs, for the most part what they pay a company who does a standard background check. It costs more for a more in depth background check, but at the end of the day it's done by some dude who prob makes slightly above minimum wage, and also has a stack of like a hundred more to do. They'll definately see huge red flags, ie criminal records.

I figure if you think of it as you wouldn't have gotten the opportunity anyways if you hadn't lied, then you haven't really lost anything. It's not like that company is going to call everyone else in town and tell them you are a liar and not hire you.

This is a position at a small engineering company so no special clearance or anything required. I'm worried that I'll accept the offer then after I quit my current job they will find out and fire me, leaving me with only 6 months of experience to put down at my current job and some kind of excuse as to why I left. That's worst case scenario, really.

I really don't think they'll find out, actually. I don't think many companies, especially ones of this size, would go through that after offering me a position, and if they do it before then I can just stay where I'm at. I'm just going to work on ways of subtly evading answering in the off chance that it comes up in the in person interview.

I think Harvey got it with option 1. Your lie has achieved all it can: you have your foot in the door and they're interested. If you tell them and they are still interested, great. If they are not, then had they found out later you may be out of two jobs with little experience. What would you say when applying for a third job? You swiped the chips off the table and now it is time to cash out and see if you can make it to the exit.

If they ask me I'll probably say that the job I'm currently at is actually my first real job in my profession out of school, and that I worked cash jobs for a while to make ends meet in this economy, and play that up as a strength, which is in a sense true. I don't think they're going to try to pin me down to a specific date in the interview, so I could just be vague about it, and I don't think they'll check after I get hired there, and even if they did as long as I didn't specifically say a date of hire beforehand I could probably work my way out of it.

If they are not, then had they found out later you may be out of two jobs with little experience. What would you say when applying for a third job?

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I can leave my current place of employment on good terms. I can go back to the job I had prior to this one (as it's not in my field). I could go to grad school. I could join the Peace Corps.

I'm debt free, have some money saved up, and have supportive family/friends. I'm single so I have no huge obligations besides dumb **** like my gym membership. Absolute worst case scenario I have to move back in with my parents until I find a new job, which with my skillset I don't think would be a huge challenge. Nothing can compare to how bad it was looking for a job in 2008/2009, that's for sure.

EDIT: Also, if I got canned from this new company for this I obviously wouldn't put it on my resume.

actually I predict this coming up not because HR does a background check but more like in a casual conversation when the boss introduces you to the team or something and you have to give a history and the dates start to sound vague.

Still, I'd say be aware, have a plan for IF it comes up, and deal with it IF it does, rather then directly pointing it out to them, even if you have a good way of doing it. if you decide to be forthright, I'd go with the route above of emailing and saying there was some mistake on your resume and they may have received the wrong one. I'd add in a note about how you know it's a detail mistake and would hope that their decision to have you join their team would be based on more than just a difference of a few months experience anyway.

actually I predict this coming up not because HR does a background check but more like in a casual conversation when the boss introduces you to the team or something and you have to give a history and the dates start to sound vague.

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Only thing people would ask is "oh so how long were you there for?" and that just begs a vague answer anyways. "Well I graduated last June, it was my first real job out of college in my area and blah blah blah." Being vague without being suspicious is easy as **** in casual conversation because nobody really cares about cold hard facts in that instance.

If they really do pin me down then I'll tell them my real start date and that I worked odd cash jobs while I looked for a job to get by, how lucky I was to get my previous job and how I learned so much, and how that translates into value for this new company and yadda yadda yadda. If they ask why my resume said 2010, then I'd just say something like "well the career people at school told us to put down a year if we worked there for a year or less otherwise employers would think it's a typo" or some such bullshit blaming it on a college counselor, everyone knows they're dumbasses anyways.



Master-Classter said:

I'd add in a note about how you know it's a detail mistake and would hope that their decision to have you join their team would be based on more than just a difference of a few months experience anyway.

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i definitely would not do that. either a casual correction or nada.

If they start getting into what you accomplished at Company X, they might start wondering why you have six months of accomplishments for a year and a half of employment.