Do Not Cheat on the CV, it is Your Life. Don't lie. Period

My second grandson Marko (Isn't he cute?) will be four in a couple of months, is entering the great childhood phase of publicly fantasizing just about anything. Not that he is mine, but the he is a very, but very-very bright kid. He is lightning fast and loves making chaos to play a risky game of making-chaos-of the-house with me. My son and daughter-in-law, who are on a tour of duty in a foreign land, try their best to rear him up with proper manners. Failing, they jointly accuse me of inducing an absolutely awful and a very costly example at that. Marko appears to have become a menace and outright danger for theirs and other people's fine bone china and crystal.

But that is not the point of this post. His present inclination to fantasizing is.

Namely, with guests around, Marco had begun throwing innocent, loud questions like "Daddy, you remember how we dived in the backyard pool of our house in London?" or "It is boring here, when shall we go sailing on the yacht with grandpa?". If the guests would be Dortje and Mo from the Volkskrantblog, nobody would give a damn. Unfortunately, they are often very highly ranked civil servants, businessmen or diplomats who tend to take Marko literally. That is where troubles begin because silencing the kid adds oil on the fire while laughing up is tantamount to a public admission of the suggestion.

Thus, where does the money come for houses with an outdoor swimming-pool in Kensington or a yachts moored in Amsterdam? We know of the old adage that "Where there is smoke, there must be some fire". The troubles begin when people begin searching.

Take for instance this poor Patric Imbardelli, till a week ago the boss of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) for all the Asia-Pacific region, member of the Board of directors of IHG, a chain employing 345,432 people and managing 558,000 hotel rooms - without mentioning their yachts and backyard swimming pools. The man resigned because he fantasized (in his long forgotten CV) that he not only attended (a fact) but also graduated (pure fantasy) from Victoria University, Sydney and Cornell University, USA. There is no point at all discussing his particular case (the CV was old, written with a job application for another firm) because none of this would affect you even if you have booked your holidays with Inter-Conti on Bora-Bora, in the Pacific. (This, of course, is my hypothesy only: will the chambermaids of the chain have new fancy ideas after the big boss was caught lying? Or would they be aware that there will not be a golden parachute opening for them upon leaving IHG?)

Let's concentrate on those who fantasize (cheat, lie, falsify, deceit) for acquiring something (position, other power, influence or plain money) through a position in the political or corporate structure. Then, googling brought me to the facts extended by the Risk Advisory Group (specialized in employee screening) which, actually, nailed Patric Imbardelli once he exposed himself at the top. These CV fantasy-busters claim that 50% of the people applying for a job lie in their Curriculum Vitae scripts by including one or more inaccuracies. They have checked, painstakingly, 3,700 CVs during the last year only and concluded that lying spreads and becomes ever more serious.

Thus, every second captain of the industry or a top bureaucrat is like my grandson Marko. The only difference is that he really fantasizes (he is not aware of the consequences) while they lie for gain, for profit and are, therefore, crooks. One out of five CV lies about collisions with the courts, present directorship positions or academic qualifications or a mix of all those. One out of five. 20% of the people who ever signed a CV are liars or, if you are sensitive to the word, they are "rather economical with the truth". People lie telling what were their previous salaries, what are their skills, their criminal records.

That is why I have a proposal:

Let us demand that Netherlands BV invite Risk Advisory Group to make a survey of all the CVs in storage with our national archives. Let us press Parliament invite the businesses that Risk Advisory Group will be authorized to check all the CV for comissarissen, CEOs and CFOs with Dutch enterprises. Period. Let us see where the hack are we in this jungle. Eventually, all CVs would have to carry a stamp "A public document. To be deposited with the Dutch Archives 25 years after being signed".

May be we shall be somewhat poorer for a number of colorful fantasists but will be merrier with so many liars out of our sight.