You have worked hard and maybe even hired a professional, but you finally have a fantastic resume that highlights every positive aspect of your career perfectly. You have followed every hint for networking and job search that you can find mentioned anywhere. After all of that you are still not getting called in for interviews and are left with the question of whether or not you should dumb down your resume.
This is a popular idea right now because of the state of the economy. The thinking is that if you dumb it down, then you might get more interviews because you will no longer be overqualified for the positions you are applying for and thus not being interviewed. While there is a certain amount of logic to this it doesn’t mean that lying on your resume if a good idea.
Any type of lie, even one of omission of positive facts can be used against you later on in your career. Most importantly, when the deception is discovered, it could be grounds for immediate termination. At best, eventually your boss is going to find out that you lied and wonder what else you have lied about. This is also a pointless exercise because you will probably be caught even before the interview.
There is a paper trail to your life and often an interviewer does a cursory check of the basic credentials of candidates before scheduling an interview. You can’t be certain that your omissions will not come to light then and remove you from candidacy immediately. The better suggestion is to keep applying and handle your over qualifications in your cover letter.
