Sometimes the falsehoods even stretch the laws of physics.
Chandler: (reading Joey's resume) ...three years of modern dance with Twyla Tharp?! Five years with the American Ballet Theater?!
Joey: Hey, everybody lies on their resume, okay? I wasn't one of the Zoom kids either.
Everyone exaggerates at least a little on their resume when seeking a new job, commonly putting down experiences that can be charitably described as Metaphorically True at best. Then there are those who take it even further, putting outright Blatant Lies if they think it will get them the job. Sometimes the character will have gotten someone else to forge their resume, resulting in them being just as surprised by its contents as anyone else who reads it.
This can lead to a "Fawlty Towers" Plot after the character is thrust into a position they're totally unqualified for, and their deception can be exposed if their employer or coworkers become suspicious and begin pulling the thread on their claims.
Very rarely in fiction are such claims background checked as they would be in real life. At most, it leads to the character not getting the job or (if hired) being fired. The more extreme cases can lead to the character facing legal repercussions, such as if they practice law or medicine without the proper credentials.
Can often involve a Phony Degree. They may try to pass off A Degree in Useless or a Worthless Foreign Degree as something more valuable. Phony Veteran is a related trope for someone lying about being a veteran.
Even though Truth in Television may apply (admit it, you've padded your resume), No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
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Films — Live-Action
- In Big, protagonist Josh Baskin has been turned from a 12-year-old into an adult, and only his best friend Billy knows/believes him. Whilst trying to get a job in order to survive, Billy helps Josh fill in an application form and suggests he put down "Neighborhood Circulation Director" in the previous employment section - what this actually refers to is Josh's paper route.
- Confessions of a Shopaholic: Rebecca spices up her resume by claiming she's fluent in Finnish. Things get awkward when she gets the job and later finds herself conversing with a Finnish man.
- Corky Romano: The idiotic White Sheep of a crime family infiltrates the FBI with a ludicrously inflated resume, all of which get him sent to extremely dangerous assignments because his profile indicates he's good at them, like translating between two crimelords speaking different languages via As Long as It Sounds Foreign and accidentally insulting them into attacking each other.
- This is the premise of Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, where Sue Ellen, who's Really 17 Years Old, applies for a job as a receptionist using a resume she copies from a guidebook, stating she's a Vassar-educated fashion designer, and is instead offered a job as an executive assistant.
- Jack of the Red Hearts: Jack managed to scam her way into getting a job in the Adams household and becoming Glory's caretaker, thanks to a resume consisting of forged background and falsified records.
- Mrs. Doubtfire: Daniel poses as an elderly, matronly Scottish woman with decades of experience as a housekeeper and nanny. Cooking proves to be the most difficult task and he has to resort to passing off Last Resort Takeout after an attempt to cook dinner goes terribly wrong.
- Pain Hustlers: Liza is a high school dropout who meets Pete, who offers to have her come interview for a sales job, while working as a stripper. She pads her resume, which Pete sees straight through... but he likes her and helps her pad it even more (claiming she has a PhD in Biochemistry to impress the company's founder). She actually turns out to be a great saleswoman and, when they need to expand the team, conduct a Terrible Interviewees Montage where several of the candidates also pad their resumes (including one woman who claims to have a degree from a school that doesn't offer it as a major). They all get hired.
- Parasite (2019): The entire Kim family does this to gain employment with the Parks. Ki-jung is the most egregious, claiming to be an American-educated art therapist and psychoanalyst.
- Second Act: Maya, an assistant manager at a big box store, lands a job as an executive consultant with a large retailer after a friend's son, without her knowledge, creates a fake resume and social media profile claiming she's an accomplished Harvard-educated businesswoman, chummy with the Obamas, rowed crew, speaks Mandarin, and did a stint in the Peace Corps.
- Sorry to Bother You: Cassius comes to a telemarketer interview with fake plaques and trophies allegedly from a prior job. The employer he's interviewing with catches his deception but fortunately for him, the employer has such low standards that he doesn't even care and hires Cassius anyway.
Literature
- East of Eden: Cyrus Trask fought in one battle during the American Civil War and lost a leg, and was discharged shortly thereafter. He lies his way into a powerful position in the Army administration and a huge wealth by passing himself as a war hero, claiming he's had a long military career, fought in every battle of the war, and served as a personal advisor to President Lincoln.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Gilderoy Lockhart lands a position at Hogwarts as a professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, based on his claimed extensive experience fighting against evil spirits and creatures. In reality, he was using a charm to erase the memory of others' exploits, and claiming them as his own.
Live-Action TV
- Austin & Ally: Trish admits in one episode she constantly does this, hence why she's constantly able to get new jobs despite her lack of competence or work ethic, and gets fired every episode, to the point of once working as a lifeguard despite not knowing how to swim. She convinces Austin to do this to make his profile seem more interesting for an upcoming magazine article, claiming amongst other things he's a master of kung fu. It backfires when the impressed reporter turns up and wants to see this.
- Friends: Joey lands a part in a Broadway musical after claiming on his resume he has years of experience in dance, trained with Twyla Tharp, and was one of the kids on Zoom. He actually can't dance at all. This backfires even more when the director asks Joey to lead the rest of the cast in rehearsing a dance number in his absence. It doesn't go well.
A later episode reveals he also lists French fluency, tap-dancing, archery, and horseback riding as skills, despite having no experience in any of them. - In the pilot of The IT Crowd, Jen blatantly lies her ass off about her credentials in order to get a job at Reynholm Industries, resulting in her being made the head of the IT department, despite not understanding anything about computers. A later episode sees her lie about being able to speak Italian so that she can get promoted, forcing Moss to develop a translation program so that she can maintain the illusion.
- In The King of Queens, Arthur Spooner corners his son-in-law Doug Heffernan over the breakfast table, demanding Doug review his CV. Arthur then reads a list of escalating lies and bizarre claims, including having been a Hollywood child star. Doug replies, poker-faced, that it might look more credible if Arthur had not written it in crayon.
- Mom: Bonnie tells Jodi that the only reason she has her job as a building manager is because her boss thinks she was an engineer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
- The Office (US): In "Junior Salesman", Dwight is tasked with finding a part-time salesperson to help fill in for Jim. Naturally, he invites and interviews his bizarre group of friends and relatives, including his cousin Mose, who he lives with. Mose, a farmhand with an ambiguous social disorder, claims in his resume that he "spent 15 years as a sales rep for DOW Chemical". Dwight immediately calls him out on it, causing Mose to flee the office.
- Victorious: The episode "Beck Falls for Tori" has Tori getting an audition for a part in a movie. Her friends look at her resume and find it underwhelming. They suggest she pad it out with special skills, such as being trained in martial arts. While Tori doesn't get the part, she is offered a job as a stunt double, as the producers think she's more than qualified.
Video Games
- Starfield: To start the Ryujin Industries questline, you need to fill out a job application at one of their kiosks which asks basic questions about level of education and relevant job experience. You can claim to have a PhD with years of experience (or the exact opposite, limited education with no experience) and still land an interview. The interviewer will call you out on your ridiculous answers, but since the previous jobholder vanished and someone needs to make a coffee run, you'll still be Hired on the Spot.
Webcomics
- Unwinder's Tall Comics: During a practice job interview, Unwinder claims to be the co-creator of FaceBook.Felicity: Mmm hmm. And if I call him, is he going to verify that?
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball: "The Fraud" is about Gumball and Darwin discovering that Principal Brown's diploma was fake. When he eventually admits to the teachers about it, it turns out that all of them lied on their résumés so that they could get the job. For instance, Miss Simian lied about her age and Mr. Small is not even a U.S. citizen. Coach Russo then says, "And I am not a woman..." (Beat, everyone stares at her) "...who can say she's never lied on her résumé either."
- King of the Hill: Hank interviews several people for a position at Strickland Propane, one of them being Dale, someone he's known his entire life, and can tell his resume (written on binder paper) is this when he claims he's worked for the (nonexistent) "Gribble and Son Propane", operating out of Yuma, Arizona, since 1984.
- The Simpsons: In "Marge Gets A Job", Marge decides to apply for a job at the nuclear plant, but the only experience she has to list on her resume is "homemaker". Lisa helps her pad it with work experience like "chauffeur", "seamstress", "worked for the Carter administration" (she voted for him twice), and "curator of large animals" (cue a bulging, hairy Homer). References to her resume become a running gag throughout the episode, which also included claims of being fluent in Swahili, writing a Muddy Waters song, and inventing a nuclear reactor.
- The Venture Bros.: Billy Quizboy, who actually is a very talented surgeon but never got to pursue it due to an incident in his youth with the O.S.I. resulting in a memory wipe, is revealed to have been working in a hospital as "Dr. Phil Donahue" who got his medical degree from Johns Hopkins. When the hospital wants to promote him for his great work, they check into his background and cannot find any record of him attending Johns Hopkins. He panics, claims that "John Hopkins" was his professor at Stanford, and then runs away.
