An Apprentice lying on their CV - again!

Apprentice wannabe Lorraine Tighe is caught LYING on her CV (The Sun)

What do these people think they are doing? I have long since stopped following The Apprentice in all its forms, because it is as unrealistic, staged and pointless as Big Brother and the candidates are screened to produce good television rather than be any sort of sane or sensible applicant. But then, lo and behold, I came across another one of these dingbats lying on their CV in a newsfeed last night. Whatever about playing the odds in the real world, where overworked HR staff may not have the time to chase down every detail on your CV, what do these clowns think is going to happen when a horde of BBC researchers have pored over every full stop and comma?

The candidate in question, Ms Tighe, had six wins under her belt during the series, but described her CV as being "a bit watery" and "a graveyard of skeletons" to the other candidates in advance of the interviews. Opening statement from one of the interviewers:

"Lorraine, I've read your CV and I've had an opportunity to look at your Personal Statement and I wonder whether you're ... a bit delusional."

And one of the others:

"If intuition is your gift, I wonder why you didn't use it to put your correct dates of employment down on your CV? ... You overstated the duration of your current employment by 12 months."

Now okay, let's be generous and assume that Lorraine is merely very careless indeed, and that the extra 12 months was a big fat typo. The programme is so heavily edited, you can't judge the candidate's body language and reactions to the questions and statements of the interviewers, so I don't know if her bleak, hopeless grin and incessant self-grooming was in response to the interviewers spotting errors/lies on her CV or a lump of the space station falling out of the sky in front of her.

Lorraine's comment to the other candidates after one of the more 'searching' interviews:

"Horrendous. Horrendous! I tell you what – it's really made me think about my CV for anything else in the future."

It's a bit late now! Once more from the top. Ahem, ahem:

• IF YOU HAVE TO LIE TO GET YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR, THIS ISN'T THE JOB FOR YOU. REALLY.

• YOUR CV HAS TO SPEAK FOR YOU. IT HAS TO SPEAK TO PEOPLE WHO DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHETHER YOU LIVE OR DIE. THEREFORE IT MUST BE IMPECCABLE AND YOU MUST BE ABLE TO STAND OVER EVERY SYLLABLE AND PUNCTUATION MARK IN IT.

• IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO PUT THAT LEVEL OF EFFORT INTO YOUR OWN CV, FOR YOUR OWN JOB-HUNT, ON YOUR OWN BEHALF, WHAT CONCLUSION IS THE READER GOING TO COME TO?

The written stage is where most of the horses fall. Often as many as 90 percent. If that is happening to you in applying for jobs that you are suitably qualified and experienced for, start with the assumption that there is something wrong with your CV and FIX it! Note the careful word choice - FIX, in boldface italics; not FUDGE, FIX!

Related Posts:
"I swam Mount Everest - Lying on your CV"
Looking at the implications of lying on your CV
Dealing with gaps on your CV