The Worst Advice From Career “Influencers”
Everyone turns to the loudest voice for sound advice. Unfortunately, the loudest voice is not always the right voice.
I saw a post last week addressing the increase in career tips on TikTok. Let’s start here with a post made by Daniel Space on LinkedIn.
The message from Wonsulting is unethical and borders illegal. They have over 100,000 followers on LinkedIn and tell people to post fake jobs and then steal their personal information to build their resumes. At the core, it’s an advertisement for their AI resume-building tool.
This got me thinking - “What information is out there that is just downright wrong?”
Here are the top three things I found that “influencers” are pushing to their followers that are flat-out WRONG, not to mention unethical, and why.
Post a fake job and harvest applicant information to build your resume. I don’t even know where to begin. First, taking someone else’s work experience and passing it along as your own is unethical. As Daniel Space mentioned and others in the comments, some states require you to track applicant data from job postings. Unless you report to the state that you posted a fake job, you are breaking state law. LinkedIn’s terms of service specifically state the following is a violation: “Create Postings without a reasonable and legitimate intent to hire for a bona fide job opportunity or the specific position listed.” Not to mention, a Linkedin recruiter license is $170 a month. Say this works; how will you perform in a job interview?
Create fake work experience using a close friend as your reference for a company that does not exist. The idea behind this is if you are looking to do a career pivot and do not have the experience, you make it up. When an employer does a background check, your friend corroborates what you list in the resume. The example I saw was someone looking for an HR Manager job. They made up a company name and said they were an HR Manager. They built a fake story of work responsibilities and achievements. This may help you get an interview, but how will you do in the interview? Probably not well! And if you, by luck, get the job, it’s just a matter of time before they recognize you lied on your resume. This reminds me of Christina Applegate in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. (One of my favs!)
Add a bunch of keywords at the end of your resume (or in any white space), then change the font color to white. This is called keyword packing, and some ATS are set up to identify when this happens and throw your resume out. Most people don’t know that some ATS parse the information from the resume and strip the formatting, so the recruiter sees a text file of the resume, meaning your resume now has these random words throughout, making the resume unreadable.
Other things I found include stating you signed an NDA to cover gaps in your resume, changing all of your job titles to match your target position when the job was nothing like the title, and overall just lying and fabricating the resume.
I understand the job market is tough, and trying to get an interview is one of the biggest challenges we all face, but going about this unethically is not the answer. What message does that send to your employer, colleagues, and customers, who depend on you for the expertise you were hired for?
Before taking advice from someone, check out their credentials. Are they certified in the topic they are discussing, or did they have luck landing a job at Google with a mediocre resume and now sell it as career advice?
