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Should Job Applicants Stop Lying about Themselves?
The real question is: when will the world stop listening?
The HR department sent me a batch of job applications to review. “Could you let us know your top-5?”
It was a thankless task. But they kindly created one file with more than a hundred documents to make it easy for me. Letters. Recommendations. CVs.
We are looking for a junior position — with little to no experience. It’s good that the company wants to hire young talent. I have always argued that straight out of college is an advantage in our transforming world. A fresh pair of eyes. Modern communication style. A different voice in the room.
But reading through the applications confused me. “Was my assumption wrong?”
I didn’t find the CVs of inexperienced but eager and hungry applicants who wanted to learn and help the organization remain relevant. Instead, I got a depressing list of generic, meaningless terms. Strong. Hardworking. Loyal. Team player.
When have we started to speak — or think — like this? It feels like some zombie horror movie from the 1950s in which everyone has been hypnotized into speaking some creepy new language.
What made going through the applications worse was that most of the junior…
