I wanted to echo the last part of this one. I've interviewed a lot of people and I see people "exaggerating" or outright lying about their skill levels and abilities more often than I would expect. It seems, anecdotally, to be increasing as well. If you find someone doing this - no hire. Instantly. If you're the one with the CV - please don't. For your own sake. It's poisonous, and it won't help you long term.

Yeah, it's not like, if you get the job, you can fake out the machine too. Either you got the skills or you don't.

I interviewed someone recently who listed C++ as his top skill. What that actually meant was a) he phyically sat near the C++ programmers at his current job and b) he ran the programs they wrote on his PC.

A colleague once had a candidate who dutifully listed PostScript on his résumé because he had been using a "print to file" feature.

I've seen telnet listed as a skill too.

People list all the programs they've used. Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, Firefox, Internet Explorer, [no, not a web programmer] Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, emacs, Visual Studio, gcc, g++, ssh, Putty, xterm, armed robbery, and emacs. (Typical start to an interview: "You listed emacs twice." "Really? Oops, sorry." "That's... not the reply I was fishing for, but 'oops' is acceptable.")

Frankly, I don't blame them. I looked through a stack of a dozen resumes on my boss's desk and noticed that every single resume listed Scrum. Somebody in HR is screening out candidates that don't list Scrum on their resume. I pointed it out to my boss and he just laughed and said he didn't think he could do anything about it. (I didn't look for other patterns, but I bet it's just as bad with particular software technologies.)

So listing every single piece of software you've ever noticed installed on your computer is a good policy unless you're personally handing your resume to the hiring manager. It makes a bad impression on technical folks, but that's better than getting your resume round-filed before anybody technical sees it.

(Note to self: next time job hunting, prepare different HR-friendly and techie-friendly versions of each resume.)

There must be some jub hunters advice book where they tell people to do this, or maybe schools careers advisers do.

We had a case where we had a stream of candidates giving the same - and wrong - answers to various questions, all had come via the same recruiter, who was debriefing them after and coaching the next one.

From the resume writer's perspective, the problem is that you have no idea what standard the interviewer uses, so you pretty much have to use the standards of your peers.

For example, I have programmed a little in many, many languages, and consider myself reasonably good in Python and C++. I know plenty of people who are less experienced than me who would write that they are "experts" in C++/Python, and would list those languages I wouldn't think to list 'cause I only know them a little.

So what should I write on my resume? I'm trying to compete with these people, after all.

My resume includes separate lists for technologies/languages I am "advanced" or "proficient" in and technologies/languages I have done some work with. To give an example, I can slowly and painfully write PL/SQL when it's necessary, but I would not feel comfortable deploying it without asking a PL/SQL guru to review it, so I don't describe myself as "proficient." I described my Java skills as "advanced" after doing a couple of years of professional Java development, but I downgraded my Java to "proficient" after spending several years away from it. I describe myself as "advanced" if I'm ready to do professional-quality work from day one.

If you go by the standards in the marketplace, well, there aren't any. We interviewed a candidate for a highly technical position only to find out that most of the technology experience listed on her resume was indirect exposure doing administrative and liaison work for technical teams. She was more technical than the typical corporate product manager or account manager position, but she wasn't remotely close to being qualified for the position we advertised. Strange thing was, she seemed to understand the position and clearly wanted it... not sure what that was about, but it proves you can't assume anything.

I interviewed a finance major for a job parsing a COMSTOCK feed from a satellite. Asked him "Can you program in C++?" "Yes" he lied.

We decided to hire him. After he accepted the offer, he asked if he could come in over the weekend to get started. Wow! What enthusiasm!

He spent the weekend learning to program in C++. He was great, his knowledge of finance was invaluable, a stellar performer all around. Eventually wrote a webpage test kit on his own and sold it to Adobe.

So was it a lie? He WAS able to program in C++ on Monday.

That's really funny. It reminds me of my old Quiz Bowl days, where I would raise my hand while still working out the answer. I trusted my brain would finish the problem before the "well, what's your answer?" pause ran out.

I suspect this individual was extremely bright, and would have succeeded regardless of job specifics.

I lied on my resume (basic C++ knowledge) when applying for my very first job. It got me past the phone interview, and I've spent the next 48 hours on caffeine struggling with examples from C++ tutorial. (I did knew some C and basic OO concepts at that point though.)

Never came to regret it.

Yes, lying is bad, and perhaps I would agree with your well-spirited reply if I weren't already at the other side. I hope it didn't reflect on my personal qualities long-term :)

Oh the other hand clueless people often don't realize that they're clueless. For instance when I was in high school I took a C++ class and never touched it again until much later, but I still had it on my resume for a long time because I didn't realize how little I had learned or how much I had forgotten until I was extremely embarrassed at a job interview.