Success Lessons from a downright lying cheat

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My dad worked out of town and since the house we grew up in was on the bad side of town, people would break in and steal things while my dad was out of town. I think my neighbor(s) was in on it but what can you do? So my dad hired a house sitter. One day he just introduces us to a guy we’ll be spending some time alone with, I wasn’t cool with not having a say in the decision making process but I was open enough to giving the guy a chance. In some random conversation I mentioned that employers didn’t see much value in my having UTSA on my resume compared to bigger and “better” Tier 1 schools and was contemplating transferring to a top University. Ben said not to change schools, just put UT on my resume, employers will respect that I “had the balls to do it.” He went off on some tangent about how he has epileptic seizures and was in a job interview where he when into shock. He commented that his interviewer was very professional and knew what he was doing by not saying anything or asking if Ben went into an epileptic seizure. Because then Ben would have “sued the pants off of that company.” Naturally I wasn’t very comfortable with my father employing such a man. Eventually, 2 of the 3 dogs we owned died of dehydration under the care of Ben and I learned that employers are likely to call and verify information such as school and GPA; most schools have a public directory of all graduates and majors. However there is some element of truth in Ben’s overconfident ploy. Mark Cuban used to get jobs by lying and saying he knew how to use certain programs when in fact he didn’t to win a contract, then he would teach himself how to do it. Truth is that’s how all jobs are done. You get the job, then you learn how to do it; employers train you after you’re hired. But in modern society where you cannot get the job without the experience or qualifications, this leads to people overqualified for their jobs and lots of unemployed college graduates.

3 years of Sales experience? Really? C’mon!

5 years of JAVA expereience when JAVA has only existed for 3 years? PLEASE!

So how do you get the experience when no one is hiring?

Ideally you would educate your potential employer, but more and more companies are automating the process, the hiring manager becomes nameless, or a person in Human Resources with little understanding of what makes a successful employee. You only have 1 shot and no follow up. How do you tell the employer you have only 1 year experience but your skills are better than any other candidate and he should look at results and trainability, not number of years experience?

You dont.

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