A resume shouldn’t just present the bare facts of your experience—it should present them in the most compelling possible way. This means carefully emphasizing the positives while hiding the negatives. But how much should you embellish that information to get results?
As many as 85 percent of people have been caught lying on a resume. To avoid becoming part of that statistic (even by accident), knowing how to embellish with care is important. Let’s take a look at how embellishment can help your resume—and how to avoid taking it too far.
What Does Embellishment Mean?
Let’s start with the basics. Per the trusty Merriam-Webster dictionary, “embellish” means “to heighten the attractiveness of by adding decorative or fanciful details.” A synonym would be to “enhance.” What does that look like in the context of resume editing?
When it comes to resumes, that definition can seem particularly vague. Embellishment could mean picking one word over another word because it sounds better. But it could also mean adding details about your work experience that never actually happened. It’s up to you to decide where to draw the line.
Our suggestion? Always imagine being asked about each part of your resume in a job interview. If you can speak about it truthfully and in detail, you’re safe. But if you’ve added items you’d struggle to talk about because they aren’t quite true, change them to be more accurate.
The Best Places to Add Embellishment
The right kind of embellishment doesn’t add anything false to your resume. Instead, it helps you present true information in the most impressive way. Here are some clever embellishment ideas that will get you an interview without changing the facts.
Dates
Fudging dates on your resume is obviously a bad idea—and that’s not what we’re recommending. However, you can make gaps in your work history less obvious by presenting the dates in a different way.
For example, most resumes list dates of employment by month and year. Maybe you worked at one job from April 2011 to July 2015, then you weren’t hired at your present job until November 2015. You can make that months-long gap in employment less obvious by dropping the months. List the first job as 2011-2015 and the second one as 2015-present. The information is accurate without drawing attention to the fact that you were out of work for almost six months.
Selective Information
Leaving things off of your resume can also be a form of embellishment. No rule says every job or every activity has to go on your resume. If you left an employer on bad terms, or didn’t hold a job for very long, that might be something you don’t want to include. And, of course, you should leave off as much irrelevant information as you can.
