…Obvious, right? Well, apparently not that obvious. And I'm not going to talk about the ethical aspect of this. Which should be your first concern.
You might feel like what you have isn't enough or that you need to spice things up a bit to get that interview. But you see, besides that being a totally fraudulent act, what people miss about resumes, LinkedIn pages, or personal websites is that they're your log of your career.
So if you are used to overstating your role or adding things that didn’t actually happen or maybe changing the whole narrative. You are ruining your career story in the longer term. And it’s way easier to spot and call out than what you think.
Over the course of my career, the only validation or credentials that I ever had were my story, the battle scar, and the “I should’ve done that,” because this is what people get hired for. At least in the software industry, specifically with how AI is changing that world. The human experience and the battle scars are much more important than technical skills.
Personally (and I know many people who share the same feeling), my resume is my story. It’s not about ”I led x to do y, and that did Z.” It's about what actually happened in those periods. Who I worked with. What was the problem we were working on, and what was our take on that problem?
This is the actual experience that people are looking for. And it’s easy for companies and recruiters to validate that (while many don’t) because you weren’t working alone.
While the above rant may feel directed, it’s not. I care about personal stories, and I don't want people to make mistakes they'll regret.
My advice is to be original and proud. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t lead in your previous job. It doesn’t matter what fancy numbers you have in there. What matters is what kind of experience you had and how it shaped you.