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- Nearly half of job-seekers engage in unethical behaviors, such as exaggerating work experience or using AI tools for resume enhancement.
- Women are 43% more likely than men to exaggerate their work experience due to systemic issues like gender bias in hiring, the motherhood penalty, and economic pressures.
- The corporate culture’s emphasis on self-promotion, along with biases against women in both hiring and career advancement, compels women to embellish their qualifications to remain competitive.
In the current economic climate characterized by layoffs and inflation, some Americans are resorting to drastic tactics to secure employment.
It seems that ethical boundaries are becoming increasingly ambiguous in the pursuit of job security, encompassing practices such as inflating resume credentials, fabricating work history, and leveraging AI technologies.
According to a study by Lance Surety Bonds, which gathered responses from 1,000 Americans laid off within the past two years, 45% of job-seekers have engaged in at least one unethical action during their job search. The most prevalent unethical behaviors are:
- Exaggerating work experience (18%)
- Omitting information (15%)
- Misrepresenting the reason for leaving a previous job (14%)
Additionally, job-seekers currently in the market are more than twice as likely to use AI tools to create or enhance their resumes compared to individuals who have secured employment post-layoff.
Remote employees are significantly more inclined to justify their unethical actions during job searching (95%) and exhibit less regret (8%) compared to their onsite counterparts.
The study also found that women are 43% more likely than men to exaggerate their work experience while job-hunting.
Aditya Sachdeva from Lance Surety Bonds told Allwork.Space, “In such a competitive job market, job-seekers are getting increasingly creative in their quest for employment. Interestingly, we found that women are 43% more likely than men to lie about their work experience to prospective employers. This could suggest that women feel the need to give themselves an advantage due to the fierce competition in the job market and inequity in the workplace.”
This jarring statistic is due to countless systemic issues of gender bias, workplace culture, and economic necessity.
There are many unfortunate reasons that women in particular are lying more frequently on about their work experience in order to get ahead in the job market, such as:
1. Gender Bias in Hiring
Studies have shown that gender bias exists in hiring practices, often to the disadvantage of women. One notable study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that science faculty members rated male student applications as more competent and hirable than identical female applicants. There are countless examples of this bias, which consequently can pressure women to embellish their resumes to compete on an uneven playing field.
2. Motherhood Penalty
Women often face a “motherhood penalty,” meaning they may be perceived as less dedicated or competent once they have children. This was examined in a paper in the American Journal of Sociology, and indicated that mothers are less likely to be hired or promoted. To counteract this biased perception, women might feel compelled to overstate their qualifications.
To counteract this biased perception, women might feel compelled to overstate their qualifications.
3. Confidence Gap
The confidence gap theory suggests that women often undervalue their own qualifications compared to men.
“This includes not applying for jobs until meeting all the qualifications and being less likely to advocate for a promotion compared to men,” according to Vault.
This can lead to women feeling the need to exaggerate their experience to appear on par with male counterparts who might display more confidence without necessarily having better qualifications.
4. Economic Pressure
Women, especially those from marginalized communities or single mothers, might experience greater economic pressures to secure employment quickly. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that women are more likely to hold part-time jobs and have lower average earnings compared to men.
These financial stresses could drive some women to do anything to secure higher-paying positions, or any position at all.
5. Workplace Culture
Corporate environments often value aggressive self-promotion, which might indirectly encourage individuals to stretch the truth about their qualifications.
Research by Bowles and Babcock in their book “Women Don’t Ask” highlights how women are often penalized for negotiating or self-promoting in a way that men are not, leading to potential compensatory behaviors like embellishing resumes.
These factors combined suggest that discrepancies in systemic opportunities, biases, and societal pressures contribute to the increased likelihood of American women feeling the need to lie about their work experience during the job-seeking process.
Each factor is well-documented, and shows the multitude of challenges women face that might lead them to such decisions.
The more that society learns about the issues working women face, the more we get closer to gender equity in the workplace. Education and understanding are some of the most important tools we can utilize to push forward change in order to create a more equal and happy society.
