The majority of people when looking for a job will pad their resume with experience or skills that they don’t necessarily have.  Job seekers want to give themselves an edge on the competition and with today’s economy, there’s a lot of competition.

The problem with padding a resume is that sometimes it can bite you in the back-side.   For instance, hiring manager’s looking for a particular technical skill set (i.e. 5 years of C++ and Linux) don’t want to waste time with someone who is only “familiar” or “knowledgeable” in these technologies, they want someone who has hands-on development experience so they hit the ground running when hired for the project or position.

In the same regard, embellishing your resume by using “key words” for experience you don’t have may get you an initial conversation but savvy recruiters and hiring managers will figure out pretty quickly whether or not you have the expertise they need for you to perform the job and the interview will likely come to an end pretty quickly.

Be honest when presenting your technical skills and your job search will be a lot more productive and most likely more successful.