Enhancing or Fabricating?
 I think we’ve become so accustomed to hyperbole in advertising and marketing today that we’re beginning to lose our perspective. When it comes to job interviews, for instance, most candidates understand that in order to stand out, you have to “sell yourself” and your accomplishments, but sometimes candidates can cross the line between ‘enhancing’ and ‘fabricating’.
Enhancing is claiming you made a ‘significant contribution’ or ‘played an important role’ as a team member when you can’t really quantify your impact. Fabricating is claiming to have personally LED a team when you were only a member. It’s true that “success has many authors and failure few”, but our job is to check the bibliography, so if there are other authors, don’t try to take the credit yourself.
Too often, candidates try to push the envelope in order to impress the interviewer, but end up crossing the line. Once that has happened, they lose their credibility, which can then call even their actual accomplishments into question.
It’s important to give yourself the credit you deserve and highlight those accomplishments that are relevant - and real - in an interview, but be careful to temper your self-promotion with humility, and to anchor your claims in reality. Because if they can’t be backed up in reference checks, your reputation can be irreparably harmed.
Graham Carver, President
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Cambridge Management Blog
by Graham Carver, President
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