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As I have grown older, I have realized dead-honesty is a false ideal to live by, especially when it comes to being rewarded in the capitalistic world. I know so

As I have grown older, I have realized dead-honesty is a false ideal to live by, especially when it comes to being rewarded in the capitalistic world. I know someone who reached executive level position in a major company and all of his career progress can be traced back to lying on his resume about a NASA internship he never got, which he conveniently purged later from everywhere. I wouldn’t go that far, but I think it’s perfectly fine to reverse-engineer the interview game and reap the rewards. There’s no reason to feel guilty about it.

chatmasta 1mo ago
The candidate may have had more success if he saved the honesty for after he solved the riddle he claimed he already knew how to solve.
Aurornis 1mo ago
> and all of his career progress can be traced back to lying on his resume about a NASA internship he never got, which he conveniently purged later from everywhere I don't like when people get ahead by lying either, but nobody cares about your internship at the executive level. That one lie helped with the first job, but it doesn't explain all of the person's success. > There’s no reason to feel guilty about it. Even if we ignore guilt, there's a subtle problem that happens when you tell a lie to get a job: You have to forever hope that nobody checks it, that no contradictory evidence accidentally shows up, and that it never becomes a point of contention. I've participated in a lot of interviews where candidates never expected us to check claims they made. It's interesting to see the entire hiring panel's view of a candidate change when someone discovers they lied about something. Everything else comes into question.
- molybd3num 1mo ago
  "if you never lie, you don't have to remember what you said"
artisinal 1mo ago
I learned that if you put “2015 - 2020 / University X, Computer Science” on your resume, nobody asks if you actually graduated.
- ButlerianJihad 1mo ago
  Because they know that if you had graduated, you would have, at every turn, mentioned the name and date of your degree, instead!
  - artisinal 1mo ago
    In my country “Computer Science” would be your degree. Your graduation date also isn’t mentioned, just the year.
    - ButlerianJihad 1mo ago
      "Academic degrees" are, by definition, named something as categories. In your country do they not have the concept of a "bachelors" degree, or "associate" degree or "masters" or "doctorate"? B.A., B.S., A.S.? Other popular categories could include "fine arts", "PhD", etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_degree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_degree Anyone putting letters after their name, i.e. postnominals, has graduated and obtained a degree. Sometimes they put the field of study but sometimes you will just see someone on LinkedIn as, "Jane Smith, MA". Could probably write something like you were in the B.A. track of your field of study. People will write "pursuing graduate degree" or "postdoc" or suchlike. But that is not what GP wrote. GP wrote a field of study; while "Computer Science" describes degree programs, it is undifferentiated, and wouldn't be considered a "degree" by the skeptical reader of CVs.
  - gambiting 1mo ago
    Eh? Would you? I have two degrees and I never mentioned exactly what they are on my CVs, literally just like above - "2010-2014 Computer Science at University X". I've reviewed countless CVs when I was a hiring manager for a few years too, and I don't really recall if people wrote down what they got, nor was it ever relevant for any position outside of intern ones.
anal_reactor 1mo ago
This is one of the reasons why I want to exit the workforce and retire ASAP. I just cannot function in an environment where ignoring the elephant in the room is the expected behavior. I am a dead-honest guy and I've surrounded myself with friends who appreciate this trait but they were really hard to find.
bigstrat2003 1mo ago
I disagree strongly. Yes, in terms of benefit to yourself honesty may not pay off, but that's not why you should do it. You should be honest (and I try to be honest) because it's shameful to be a deceitful person. Virtue actually matters, it's not all about getting ahead materially.
- JSR_FDED 1mo ago
  But what if you know you could make a materially positive impact for the company? Then wouldn’t it be virtuous to play their recruiting game in such a way that you could make that contribution ?
  - bigstrat2003 1mo ago
    Depends on your school of ethical thought. If you're a consequentialist, sure. But I'm very much not a consequentialist, so I don't think that it's morally correct to do a bad thing in order to achieve good ends.
wofo 1mo ago
OP here. I didn't want to end the article in a preachy note, but an implicit point is that I'm doing quite well "despite" my policy of being honest. Monetary rewards are a poor substitute for living up to your values! Besides... many players in the market actually seek people with "moral integrity" (or whatever the fashionable term is nowadays).
jrflo 1mo ago
Totally agreed. Capitalism is just a game of competition, and if you want to win the game you should take all advantages that you have. Pretty much everyone else you're competing against will be doing the same. I know a guy who worked for a prestigious accounting firm and was the dead-honest type. Everyone was inflating their billable hours to clients, except for him. He was 100% truthful on his hours and made sure not to waste any client money, but still got just as much work done as his colleagues who were inflating their hours. Guess who was the first target during layoffs? If you don't want to play the game that's totally fine, but I wouldn't be surprised if giving yourself a disadvantage didn't hurt in the long run.

chatmasta 1mo ago

The candidate may have had more success if he saved the honesty for after he solved the riddle he claimed he already knew how to solve.

Aurornis 1mo ago

> and all of his career progress can be traced back to lying on his resume about a NASA internship he never got, which he conveniently purged later from everywhere I don't like when people get ahead by lying either, but nobody cares about your internship at the executive level. That one lie helped with the first job, but it doesn't explain all of the person's success. > There’s no reason to feel guilty about it. Even if we ignore guilt, there's a subtle problem that happens when you tell a lie to get a job: You have to forever hope that nobody checks it, that no contradictory evidence accidentally shows up, and that it never becomes a point of contention. I've participated in a lot of interviews where candidates never expected us to check claims they made. It's interesting to see the entire hiring panel's view of a candidate change when someone discovers they lied about something. Everything else comes into question.

molybd3num 1mo ago
"if you never lie, you don't have to remember what you said"

artisinal 1mo ago

I learned that if you put “2015 - 2020 / University X, Computer Science” on your resume, nobody asks if you actually graduated.

ButlerianJihad 1mo ago
Because they know that if you had graduated, you would have, at every turn, mentioned the name and date of your degree, instead!
- artisinal 1mo ago
  In my country “Computer Science” would be your degree. Your graduation date also isn’t mentioned, just the year.
  - ButlerianJihad 1mo ago
    "Academic degrees" are, by definition, named something as categories. In your country do they not have the concept of a "bachelors" degree, or "associate" degree or "masters" or "doctorate"? B.A., B.S., A.S.? Other popular categories could include "fine arts", "PhD", etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_degree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_degree Anyone putting letters after their name, i.e. postnominals, has graduated and obtained a degree. Sometimes they put the field of study but sometimes you will just see someone on LinkedIn as, "Jane Smith, MA". Could probably write something like you were in the B.A. track of your field of study. People will write "pursuing graduate degree" or "postdoc" or suchlike. But that is not what GP wrote. GP wrote a field of study; while "Computer Science" describes degree programs, it is undifferentiated, and wouldn't be considered a "degree" by the skeptical reader of CVs.
- gambiting 1mo ago
  Eh? Would you? I have two degrees and I never mentioned exactly what they are on my CVs, literally just like above - "2010-2014 Computer Science at University X". I've reviewed countless CVs when I was a hiring manager for a few years too, and I don't really recall if people wrote down what they got, nor was it ever relevant for any position outside of intern ones.

anal_reactor 1mo ago

This is one of the reasons why I want to exit the workforce and retire ASAP. I just cannot function in an environment where ignoring the elephant in the room is the expected behavior. I am a dead-honest guy and I've surrounded myself with friends who appreciate this trait but they were really hard to find.

bigstrat2003 1mo ago

I disagree strongly. Yes, in terms of benefit to yourself honesty may not pay off, but that's not why you should do it. You should be honest (and I try to be honest) because it's shameful to be a deceitful person. Virtue actually matters, it's not all about getting ahead materially.

JSR_FDED 1mo ago
But what if you know you could make a materially positive impact for the company? Then wouldn’t it be virtuous to play their recruiting game in such a way that you could make that contribution ?
- bigstrat2003 1mo ago
  Depends on your school of ethical thought. If you're a consequentialist, sure. But I'm very much not a consequentialist, so I don't think that it's morally correct to do a bad thing in order to achieve good ends.

wofo 1mo ago

OP here. I didn't want to end the article in a preachy note, but an implicit point is that I'm doing quite well "despite" my policy of being honest. Monetary rewards are a poor substitute for living up to your values! Besides... many players in the market actually seek people with "moral integrity" (or whatever the fashionable term is nowadays).

jrflo 1mo ago

Totally agreed. Capitalism is just a game of competition, and if you want to win the game you should take all advantages that you have. Pretty much everyone else you're competing against will be doing the same. I know a guy who worked for a prestigious accounting firm and was the dead-honest type. Everyone was inflating their billable hours to clients, except for him. He was 100% truthful on his hours and made sure not to waste any client money, but still got just as much work done as his colleagues who were inflating their hours. Guess who was the first target during layoffs? If you don't want to play the game that's totally fine, but I wouldn't be surprised if giving yourself a disadvantage didn't hurt in the long run.