PADDING A RESUME OR COOKING IT UP;
AN ETHICAL FAUX PAS, OR JUSTIFIABLE?
05/24/26
Let’s have an honest conversation for a minute. Can we admit that most of us have screwed up with our resumes at one point? Oh, come on, it’s ok; you can say it, no biggie. I mean, maybe not completely inventing a career out of thin air, but at the very least polishing things a little, like stretching a title, cleaning up a gap, or making a position sound a little bigger than it really was. You know a little touch-up here and there. There is no harm in putting a little lipstick on a piggy.
No, nobody? goddamn hypocrites.
Ok, I’ll start since no one has the balls to do it. I’ll say it; I did it at the early age of my promising yet chainsaw career when I was eight and on a couple of other occasions. I romanticized it, lied on it, and cooked it up, sure.
But would I still do it today? Well, I don’t think so, and it’s not because I think highly of myself, but just because I don’t need it anymore. With my experience I don’t feel the need to. Although, at the beginning of this year, I must admit I was tempted to and seriously thought about doing it again, because at my age and with my experience as both a GM and a chef, I know recruiters in Miami won’t spend more than thirty seconds looking at my résumé before moving on to the next one. And they have proven me right. Been there, done that.
So eventually I let it go, and I gave up trying to find a job in the restaurant industry here. But I still send my résumé out to companies every day to give myself a clear conscience and to prove a point to my wife about why we need to move. I also have to confess that I also derive a sadistic pleasure from reading the rejection emails afterward.
But the question remains. If you are in your right mind, why take the risk of lying on a résumé nowadays?
There was a time when you actually could get away with it. Restaurants were less corporate, and HR departments were not as efficient. Background checks were inconsistent, and nobody called your previous employer or cared enough to check. Other times, you simply got fucking lucky. And, if we are being honest, it happened that you had somebody inside willing to cover for you.
But social media also didn’t exist the way it does today. Now, if somebody Googles your name, they can know more about you than your own family. And frankly, we helped create that situation ourselves by posting every fucking detail of our lives on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc… Everybody is broadcasting themselves twenty-four hours a day.
So you are searchable before you even open your mouth. Your life is online, your history is visible, in a nutshell, you leave a trail like a dog pee on each fucking tree it encounters.
So in the end, it’s not just a resume anymore; it’s a printed add of ourselves.
And still… People continue doing it.
So why take the risk of being caught? Why put yourself in that awkward position during an interview, or worse, risk losing a job you are actually capable of doing? I’m not talking about pure stupidity here. I mean the people who know exactly what the fuck they are doing.
Is there something deeper behind this?
I think there is because I am sure that most people don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “You know what? I’ll cook up a resume and make myself a career out of the fucking blue today.” Most of the time, they are simply trying to get somebody to finally read the damn résumé. They are trying to get through that new invisible frontier that will allow them to speak to an actual human being. And that’s the part nobody really talks about.
Before, a person received and read your résumé; there was now software that screened it first. But now an algorithm does, so people have to adapt, because fixing titles, dates, and gaps is not cutting it anymore; you need to add keywords and filters. Sure, you’ll tweak the wording, stretch a responsibility, and clean up a gap in employment, but you will need to add a skill you only partially master because you know the machine is scanning for certain keywords. The best part is you don’t lie because you’re not qualified; you are more than capable of doing the job. But it needs to look just right on paper. And paper like AI can be brutal.
Because if you don’t match the system correctly, you disappear at the bottom of the pile. And if you make the mistake of giving a whiff of your personality, you are fucked. Because we now live in a world where having a personality is risky, honesty is inconvenient, and being a free spirit and not fitting the mold is a defect. We are living in an era where being fucking normal and flawed is somehow an anomaly. That bakes my noodle.
I remember a time when a solid work ethic and a solid experience used to be enough for somebody to build a career. But that was then. Today people need to adjust themselves to fit the fantasy. So we polish ourselves to fit the narrative, to be in the herd. We are “sheeping” ourselves, if you will excuse that French word for word direct translation to English.
And social media made that even worse. LinkedIn doesn’t help. Instagram doesn’t help. Facebook doesn’t help. Everybody online looks successful, polished, disciplined, productive, motivated, and smiling under perfect lighting and with perfect careers. So after a while, people stop believing that the real version of themselves is enough, and they build a better-looking version instead: a “super candidate.” Basically the same person, just airbrushed and photoshopped for survival. Oh, I forgot to add the fact that you are one of five hundred applicants for the same position.
So when the rent is due and when rejection emails keep piling up, the ethical gray area starts looking less like dishonesty and more like a life raft, because you have the choice between a perfectly honest résumé that nobody will read or a slightly “romanced” one that might feed your family. That’s when ethics suddenly become a lot more complicated.
And don’t think it’s mostly motivated by ambition, no; it’s fear. The fear of disappearing, of becoming obsolete, of being left behind in a system that increasingly feels like it has no room for ordinary people anymore.
Does that make lying right? No. A lie is still a lie. But let’s stop pretending it happened out of the blue. We are living in a culture where people are more visible than ever and somehow feel more pressure than ever to hide who they really are. That’s quite the irony.
So when the candidates take the responsibility of lying, they are not entirely the only ones to be blamed; nowadays companies ask for perfection on paper, and those fucking algorithms or AI that filter the applications reject people before even meeting or talking to them. Recruiters used to spend some time on a profile; now it takes seconds to scan an entire career.
Add to the pile of this bullshit nonsense that social media constantly reminds people that everybody else appears smarter, younger, more successful, and more employable; don’t be fucking surprised when people start editing the truth.
At some point, maybe the real question is no longer, “Why do people lie?” But maybe the real question is, “Why doesn’t the truth cut it anymore?”
Because the “romanced” résumé is not just about dishonesty, it is just the logical result of a system that slowly stopped valuing humans with their imperfections and their flaws and started rewarding polished and well-groomed packaged personalities instead.
So now that we have turned careers into marketing exercises, we have replaced the messy reality of learning, failing, improving, struggling, and evolving with a soap opera fiction designed to survive automated filters. And if it does not worry you, you should be, because we all live inside that performance together now.
So is romanticizing a resume a fatal mistake or an act of survival? Honestly, once survival enters the room, morality gets sweaty. The digital age made deception easier to detect, but it also made honesty harder to sell. Maybe the solution is not simply asking people to become more honest, but perhaps the solution is building a system where honesty actually has a chance to get through the door. A world where career gaps, imperfect paths, learning curves, and “good enough” skills are still allowed to exist without immediately disqualifying someone.
Until then, the résumé will probably remain what it has quietly become: A beautifully scripted fiction written by people who are simply trying to survive in a polished, digital world where perception matters more than truth.
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Let’s have an honest conversation for a minute. Can we admit that most of us have screwed up with our resumes at one point? Oh, come on, it’s ok; you can say it, no biggie. I mean, maybe not completely inventing a career out of thin air, but at the very least polishing things a little, like stretching a title, cleaning up a gap, or making a position sound a little bigger than it really was. You know a little touch-up here and there. There is no harm in putting a little lipstick on a piggy.
No, nobody? goddamn hypocrites.
Ok, I’ll start since no one has the balls to do it. I’ll say it; I did it at the early age of my promising yet chainsaw career when I was eight and on a couple of other occasions. I romanticized it, lied on it, and cooked it up, sure.
But would I still do it today? Well, I don’t think so, and it’s not because I think highly of myself, but just because I don’t need it anymore. With my experience I don’t feel the need to. Although, at the beginning of this year, I must admit I was tempted to and seriously thought about doing it again, because at my age and with my experience as both a GM and a chef, I know recruiters in Miami won’t spend more than thirty seconds looking at my résumé before moving on to the next one. And they have proven me right. Been there, done that.
So eventually I let it go, and I gave up trying to find a job in the restaurant industry here. But I still send my résumé out to companies every day to give myself a clear conscience and to prove a point to my wife about why we need to move. I also have to confess that I also derive a sadistic pleasure from reading the rejection emails afterward.
But the question remains. If you are in your right mind, why take the risk of lying on a résumé nowadays?
There was a time when you actually could get away with it. Restaurants were less corporate, and HR departments were not as efficient. Background checks were inconsistent, and nobody called your previous employer or cared enough to check. Other times, you simply got fucking lucky. And, if we are being honest, it happened that you had somebody inside willing to cover for you.
But social media also didn’t exist the way it does today. Now, if somebody Googles your name, they can know more about you than your own family. And frankly, we helped create that situation ourselves by posting every fucking detail of our lives on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc… Everybody is broadcasting themselves twenty-four hours a day.
So you are searchable before you even open your mouth. Your life is online, your history is visible, in a nutshell, you leave a trail like a dog pee on each fucking tree it encounters.
So in the end, it’s not just a resume anymore; it’s a printed add of ourselves.
And still… People continue doing it.
So why take the risk of being caught? Why put yourself in that awkward position during an interview, or worse, risk losing a job you are actually capable of doing? I’m not talking about pure stupidity here. I mean the people who know exactly what the fuck they are doing.
Is there something deeper behind this?
I think there is because I am sure that most people don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “You know what? I’ll cook up a resume and make myself a career out of the fucking blue today.” Most of the time, they are simply trying to get somebody to finally read the damn résumé. They are trying to get through that new invisible frontier that will allow them to speak to an actual human being. And that’s the part nobody really talks about.
Before, a person received and read your résumé; there was now software that screened it first. But now an algorithm does, so people have to adapt, because fixing titles, dates, and gaps is not cutting it anymore; you need to add keywords and filters. Sure, you’ll tweak the wording, stretch a responsibility, and clean up a gap in employment, but you will need to add a skill you only partially master because you know the machine is scanning for certain keywords. The best part is you don’t lie because you’re not qualified; you are more than capable of doing the job. But it needs to look just right on paper. And paper like AI can be brutal.
Because if you don’t match the system correctly, you disappear at the bottom of the pile. And if you make the mistake of giving a whiff of your personality, you are fucked. Because we now live in a world where having a personality is risky, honesty is inconvenient, and being a free spirit and not fitting the mold is a defect. We are living in an era where being fucking normal and flawed is somehow an anomaly. That bakes my noodle.
I remember a time when a solid work ethic and a solid experience used to be enough for somebody to build a career. But that was then. Today people need to adjust themselves to fit the fantasy. So we polish ourselves to fit the narrative, to be in the herd. We are “sheeping” ourselves, if you will excuse that French word for word direct translation to English.
And social media made that even worse. LinkedIn doesn’t help. Instagram doesn’t help. Facebook doesn’t help. Everybody online looks successful, polished, disciplined, productive, motivated, and smiling under perfect lighting and with perfect careers. So after a while, people stop believing that the real version of themselves is enough, and they build a better-looking version instead: a “super candidate.” Basically the same person, just airbrushed and photoshopped for survival. Oh, I forgot to add the fact that you are one of five hundred applicants for the same position.
So when the rent is due and when rejection emails keep piling up, the ethical gray area starts looking less like dishonesty and more like a life raft, because you have the choice between a perfectly honest résumé that nobody will read or a slightly “romanced” one that might feed your family. That’s when ethics suddenly become a lot more complicated.
And don’t think it’s mostly motivated by ambition, no; it’s fear. The fear of disappearing, of becoming obsolete, of being left behind in a system that increasingly feels like it has no room for ordinary people anymore.
Does that make lying right? No. A lie is still a lie. But let’s stop pretending it happened out of the blue. We are living in a culture where people are more visible than ever and somehow feel more pressure than ever to hide who they really are. That’s quite the irony.
So when the candidates take the responsibility of lying, they are not entirely the only ones to be blamed; nowadays companies ask for perfection on paper, and those fucking algorithms or AI that filter the applications reject people before even meeting or talking to them. Recruiters used to spend some time on a profile; now it takes seconds to scan an entire career.
Add to the pile of this bullshit nonsense that social media constantly reminds people that everybody else appears smarter, younger, more successful, and more employable; don’t be fucking surprised when people start editing the truth.
At some point, maybe the real question is no longer, “Why do people lie?” But maybe the real question is, “Why doesn’t the truth cut it anymore?”
Because the “romanced” résumé is not just about dishonesty, it is just the logical result of a system that slowly stopped valuing humans with their imperfections and their flaws and started rewarding polished and well-groomed packaged personalities instead.
So now that we have turned careers into marketing exercises, we have replaced the messy reality of learning, failing, improving, struggling, and evolving with a soap opera fiction designed to survive automated filters. And if it does not worry you, you should be, because we all live inside that performance together now.
So is romanticizing a resume a fatal mistake or an act of survival? Honestly, once survival enters the room, morality gets sweaty. The digital age made deception easier to detect, but it also made honesty harder to sell. Maybe the solution is not simply asking people to become more honest, but perhaps the solution is building a system where honesty actually has a chance to get through the door. A world where career gaps, imperfect paths, learning curves, and “good enough” skills are still allowed to exist without immediately disqualifying someone.
Until then, the résumé will probably remain what it has quietly become: A beautifully scripted fiction written by people who are simply trying to survive in a polished, digital world where perception matters more than truth.
PADDING A RESUME OR COOKING IT UP;
Ethical faux pas or justifiable.
05/14/26
Newsletter
YOUR SEAT AT THE TABLE STARTS HERE
NO SPAM.
NO SPIN.
THE GOOD STUFF ONLY
Sharp stories, honest conversations, and the occasional badly behaved opinion. Delivered when there’s something worth saying.
BY SIGNING UP, YOU AGREE TO RECEIVE EMAILS FROM FOODNBULLSHIT. UNSUBSCRIBE ANYTIME.
© 2026 FOODNBULLSHIT All rights reserved.
Contact:
alexandrefenot@gmail.com
NEWSLETTER
NO SPAM.
NO SPIN.
THE GOOD STUFF ONLY
Sharp stories, honest conversations, and the occasional badly behaved opinion. Delivered when there’s something worth saying.
BY SIGNING UP, YOU AGREE TO RECEIVE EMAILS FROM FOODNBULLSHIT. UNSUBSCRIBE ANYTIME.
© 2026 FOODNBULLSHIT All rights reserved.