{"id":1620,"date":"2008-06-17T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2008-06-17T13:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/the-highest-level-verb\/"},"modified":"2008-06-17T06:35:55","modified_gmt":"2008-06-17T11:35:55","slug":"the-highest-level-verb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/the-highest-level-verb\/","title":{"rendered":"The Highest-Level Verb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It isn&#8217;t always clear what the exact number is, but more than 50% of jobseekers <strike>lie on<\/strike> embellish their resume.\u00a0 Forbes offers up an article titled <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/leadership\/careers\/2008\/06\/11\/resume-empolyment-jobs-lead-cx_kk_0611faking.html?feed=rss_leadership_careers\">Overachievement Without Achievement<\/a> that contains a picture of Milli Vanilli.\u00a0 How perfect is that?\u00a0 The article quotes 53% as the number of people who <strike>lie on<\/strike> embellish their resume.<\/p>\n<p>But check this out:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Some college students are encouraged to embellish items on their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s. &#8220;They are taught to use the highest-level verb,&#8221; says Nancy Davis, a psychology professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. For instance, an intern who ran copies of an instruction manual might say he &#8220;created&#8221; the manual on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, Davis says.<\/p>\n<p>But the step from r\u00e9sum\u00e9 embellishment to outright faking isn&#8217;t a long one. Awareness of r\u00e9sum\u00e9 cooking could make job applicants feel they must push the envelope on their application, if only because everyone else is doing it (a frame of thought psychologists call false consensus).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Highest-level verb&#8221; is a phrase for which I am not familiar, but it explains much.\u00a0 My layman&#8217;s term for it was attempting to use the Queen&#8217;s English to sound smarter.\u00a0 Of course, this approach can easily backfire with improper usage of unfamiliar words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It isn&#8217;t always clear what the exact number is, but more than 50% of jobseekers lie on embellish their resume.\u00a0 Forbes offers up an article titled Overachievement Without Achievement that contains a picture of Milli Vanilli.\u00a0 How perfect is that?\u00a0 The article quotes 53% as the number of people who lie on embellish their resume. But check this out: Some college students are encouraged to embellish items on their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s. &#8220;They are taught to use the highest-level verb,&#8221; says Nancy Davis, a psychology professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. For instance, an intern who ran copies of an instruction manual might say he &#8220;created&#8221; the manual on his&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/the-highest-level-verb\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,13],"tags":[781,779,780,541,1759],"class_list":["post-1620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hiring","category-resumes","tag-fake-resume","tag-highest-level-verb","tag-lying-on-resume","tag-resume-errors","tag-resumes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-q8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":324,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/09\/resume-veracity\/","url_meta":{"origin":1620,"position":0},"title":"Resume Veracity","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Adria offered an interesting comment on our post regarding Resume Enhancements. Here is her comment in whole: I currently teach a Resume class in a Texas Workforce Center. I tell my attendees to never lie on their resumes. I also try to emphasize they should never put something in print\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":290,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/09\/fakin-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":1620,"position":1},"title":"Fakin&#8217; It","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We can't stress this enough, if your first pass on applicants is to sort resumes, you are making a big mistake. Granted, you have to look at their history, but odds are you are looking at an embellished document. From workforce.com: ResumeDoctor.com says nearly 43 percent of people in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2481,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2011\/04\/bad-wordin\/","url_meta":{"origin":1620,"position":2},"title":"Bad Wording","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The opening line of a candidate\u2019s experience as he listed on his resume: Hired by company to penetrate virgin markets\u2026 Honestly, this is a candidate for a high-level sales position.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t have enough sense to change that sentence?","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Candidates&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Candidates","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/sales\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":543,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/psychologically-unemployable\/","url_meta":{"origin":1620,"position":3},"title":"Psychologically Unemployable","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"CareerJournal.com - Returning to the Corporate Fold After a Stint As Your Own Boss: \"After seven years of running your own business, you're a renegade,\" Mr. Eberharter says. \"I call people like this 'psychologically unemployable.' \" What a fantastic saying - I laughed out loud when I read it. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1802,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/11\/odd-resume-inclusions\/","url_meta":{"origin":1620,"position":4},"title":"Odd Resume Inclusions","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"November 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In first reading this I thought I was reading a line from one of Jeff Foxworthy's jokes, \"You know you are a redneck if you write on your resume, \"hobbies include sitting on the levee at night watching alligators.\"\u00a0 Nope, this is\u00a0one of many odd resume inclusions from an article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Anecdotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Anecdotes","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/anecdotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1559,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/fun-from-the-resume-pile\/","url_meta":{"origin":1620,"position":5},"title":"Fun From The Resume Pile","author":"Eric Ramberg","date":"May 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"From the outstanding resume file - a resume I received yesterday for a Project Manager position: Personal Attributes I am highly enthusiastic, hard working, opinionated and motivated to work under my own initiative or as part of a team. 1. I have extensive practical experience of fault-finding\u2026 Which explains why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Anecdotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Anecdotes","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/anecdotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->