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Lies on CVs
"The truth is for suckers, everyone lies on their CV, recruiters just need to get used to it."
Discuss . . .
Woodentongue
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Not a new problem, really. But I know in recent years companies and universities are being a little more thorough in their background checks of prospective employees. There's even a Web site - can't recall the URL - that allows you to find out what past employers have to say about you.
In a crappy economy here in the States, I expect lying on the CVs to increase. As well as companies' expenditures to verify the CVs.
Kid Vicious
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
A different (non-IS) department just ran head-long into this.
They hired a new employee and during HR's first day orientation they mentioned that they hadn't finished completing the background check. They also mentioned that his employment was, of course, contingent on his passing his background check (not that they usually ever find anything bad).
At that point, the new employee blurts out that he lied on his resume and he doesn't have a college degree! This surprised the heck out of the HR person, who had to find her boss to see what they should do - this hadn't ever happened before.
He was shown the door. The interesting thing is that he probably would have been offered the position even without the degree (he had, IIRC, 2-3 years of college) since the hiring manager really liked him.
RocketJeff
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
After some experience with reviewing resumes (CVs), I've learned to be *extremely* skeptical of the experience listed on people from certain, very specific cultural backgrounds (no, I won't name them here). Not to say that those cultures have a monopoly on lying in resumes - I've seen some whoppers on resumes from other cultures too - but it's much less prevalent.
Always, always check an applicant's background before making a hiring decision. It sounds obvious - but I've been surprised how often people get hired without basic checks such as checking if they really have experience with the things they claim on a resume.
Burninator
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
The fun one about lying on your CV is that it tends to screw you over once you've found success, not at the beginning.
Flamebait Sr.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Lying on a CV is a sacking offence more or less everywhere. Don't do it , not worth it. Presenting the truth in a misleading way - well that's just marketing.
a cynic writes...
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I have just about zero tolerance for any kind of lying at all, least of all on CVs, and have rejected otherwise good candidates because of it. You never know what else they're going to lie about.
Joel Spolsky
Fog Creek Software
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Maybe I'm naive, but how hard it is to verify the information on a CV? What are human resources for if they don't do these basic checks?
If you lie about education, I could easily find the truth by asking a copy of the grades from the University/college. And since you could always pay the grades clerk, I'd ask a few questions about a class that nobody would ever study in their free time. If you can tell me what's the difference between a LL(1) and a LALR(1) grammar, do a triple integration, and show me an example of a triangular superior matrix, you're probably not lying about your B.Sc. in Computers Science :)
As for experience in the workfield, I guess a technical test is in order. I'd then check your references to adjust your salary accordingly to your years in the field.
Anonymouche
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
"Maybe I'm naive, but how hard it is to verify the information on a CV? What are human resources for if they don't do these basic checks?"
I suspect in some cases, HR is just lazy or overworked. In other cases, if the position is entry-level on a large team, the thinking may be "How much damage could this one entry-level person do anyway if they turn out to be incompetent?" Yep, in some cases, the answer is *lots*.
Kid Vicious
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Burninator-
I can't stand it! You must tell me which cultures lie on resumes. Is it the Jews? The Gypsies? Feminists? Please!!!?!?!?!!?
Joel- I am always dubious of people who claim zero tolerance for lying. I have found that most of these people actually insist that you lie in some situations.
BTW, a bit of advice I can give after having dealt very closely with some amazing liars... a really good way to spot a liar is that when you question something he has said he gets really really offended instead of trying to back it up or explain it further. The final result with a basically truthful person is usually they throw up their hands and say 'I've tried to convince you and I just can't prove it so don't belive me. FIne'. The liar will be immediately offended that you are calling him a liar (even if you weren't) and tell you how important trust is to him.
name withheld out of cowardice
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
"He was shown the door."
I know this sounds odd, but if you make it through the gates then your history should be irrelevant (except perhaps if applying for new positions within the organization that require skills outside of that that you've directly demonstrated in that role). The idea that a company hires you and THEN performs a background check (or holds it over your head for perpetuity) is positively absurd -- A short while ago I was given an offer "contingent upon background checks" (which included education, personal and professional references, criminal, credit, etc -- this was for a large financial company), and my reply was that I would not accept the offer until they'd completed their checks to their satisfaction (which confused them, but they proceeded with my wishes and carried out the checks to their satisfaction, at which time I accepted the offer). This isn't a roll of the dice to see if they'd find out about my dark murderous womanizing past, but rather that a "background check" is a totally nebulous, undefined risk of employment -- Maybe they wouldn't like that I was 30 days late paying my credit card 7 years earlier. Who knows. This was a risk that I wasn't willing to take, and I think it's unreasonable for any employee to take.
If you're an employer then it is your responsibility to totally vet candidates before you hire them (and before you expect any commitment from them). If everything comes up clean, then hire them and judge them from that day forward based upon the best evidence possible - what you see them do and accomplish every day. This goes both ways (an employee shouldn't cost upon validated prior accomplishments).
.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
name withheld out of cowardice
You would have made a great inquisitor, usually I get mad when I am telling the truth and and not believed not the other way around
the artist formerly known as prince
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Dot - I'd bet the company was just trying to avoid wasting time doing the background check if you had already found another position. Depending on the company, their HR process may be VERY slow, and they may well have found that they get a lot of rejections simply because the person has found other employment before they got back to them. In this situation, the 'obvious' response would be to try to speed up the HR process. Being unable to do that, they simply do the best they can: put off the background check (which almost never fails!) until after they know the candidate is really up for the job.
On the subject at hand - I wouldn't put up with lying on someone's CV either. If someone is willing to lie to get the job, what are they willing to do in order to keep the job? Or to climb the corporate ladder (if any)? There's way too much risk to the buisness when you hire folks with generally poor ethics and bad judgement.
Michael Kohne
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Funny how lies on a CV are a sacking offence, but lies in an interview are almost required.
"What is your greatest weakness?"
Jimmy Jo JO
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I am fed up with this "what's your greatest weakness" crap.
Next time I interview someone, i'll ask that and if they don't come right and call bullshit on the question, they're a no-hire.
pdq
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I have the "pleasure" of doing phone screening when we hire. If someone lies on their CV regarding a technology we use, I'll find out. I think thats why they use me. Too often the interviewer doesn't want to ask stupid, trivial questions "explain polymorphism", or "whats the difference between an abstract class and an interface", but I was shocked how many people those questions eliminated. Hopefully, if those hiring continue to ask good questions, the people blatently lying on their CV (in regards to what technologies they know) will just end up being embarrassed over and over.
vince
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Call me old-fashioned, but lying on your resume is still lying; it's dishonest, unethical and will frequently come back to bite you in end.
When I was hiring people, I took the time to make absolutely certain that they were the right person. Part of that process involved a lot of one-on-one discussions and interviewing. If you lied about being a manager of a development dept, then rest assured that we would probably figure that out during the course of the interviews.
In short, by the time I was finished interviewing someone, I had a pretty good idea of what kind of developer and person they were. If what I saw in person didn't jive with what I saw on their resume then they were out.
Honesty...it's still the best policy.
Mark Hoffman
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I think the problem works itself out...
Any company that hires strictly on the weight of a resume deserves what it gets. Likewise, if you lie on your resume and a company can't catch that during an interview, then you are likely going to work for a sweatshop or some other "developer challenged" organization.
Good companies hire good people. The liars and cheats get filtered out and get to work for the crap companies.
Huh?
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Interesting how moralistic people are about this issue when it comes to employees misrepresenting themselves - Do they hold employers to the same high standards?
It's amazing how many workplaces and organizations quite honestly stink, yet contrastingly how many job adverts talk about how exciting, empowering, and great the environment is. I worked at one firm where it was basically the walking dead, yet the adverts invariably talked about how fun and exciting of a workplace it was. At the same place (a small to mid sized tech company) the adverts talked about the "executive open door" policy, and how you could just walk in and chat with the president. I suppose that's true...if you don't mind that every visit turned into a "why are you wasting my time" grilling to avoid future visits (virtually no one even walked in the general vincinity of his office because of this). We all know of organizations that have the 'facade' benefits like game rooms or flex time that they sell to prospective employees...but in reality it's career suicide to actually take advantage of them.
Even speaking of a better example, let's just say that the workplace standards that Joel has described for his organization are _incredibly_ lofty. Perhaps it's that great being a Fog Creek...but I find it incredibly likely that there's a FogCreek developer out there reading this stuff and thinking "Man...what a bunch of bs...". I say this based upon nothing but a hunch.
badges...we don't need no stinkin' badges
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
badges: In most cases, there's no way to hold the employer accountable for what they say about their workplace, other than to get out if it turns out to be a crappy place to work.
The idea of "getting to know the person" before hiring them should, ideally work both ways: the person being hired should be trying to get to know the company - really know the company. I don't think I'm smart/gets things done enough for Fog Creek, but if I were getting interviewed by them, I'd be looking to confirm what I have learned about the company from the website, from these forums. Just as it makes sense to drop a person from your list of candidates for a job if you found out they lied on their resume, it makes sense to drop a company from your list of places you're trying to get a job at if you find out they're lying about the atmosphere, the salary/performance management system, whatever.
The catch is that when you're seriously looking for a job, you don't always have the luxury of choosing from multiple offers. This is where constantly keeping up-to-date on what the job market's like and networking comes in: try to know before you apply what the company's like. There was a company here that was continually hiring engineers, then a couple years later they'd lay a bunch off, then a few months after that they'd hire again. People would work there, but no one had any illusions about long-term stability, and sure enough, the parent company decided to get out of the pager business and there's now a couple empty buildings sitting there...
Ward
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Most technologists (developers, graphic artists, etc.) probably don't lie about their education or whom they previously worked for, but I bet many do stretch the truth when it comes to "on the job" experience with a particular version of a software product.
Most technologists who exaggerate/lie on their resume do so because they believe they need to this in order to put food on the table. The truth is there are a lot of people who are terrified that the IT downturn has left them unemployable. Imo, there are a lot of people out there who believe that writing "I have three years of SQL Server 7 experience with past clients, but I have only been using SQL Server 2000 on my home computer for the last year" within their cover letter/resume will get them nowhere with a gatekeeper who only knows how to match buzzwords.
One Programmer's Opinion
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I have been vague before about which technology I know to keep resumes to one page, and then encourage recruiters to ask for an optional separate sheet to clarify things, because I need a whole page to list it all.
No one wants to end up at a company that has an expectation of you that is completely wrong--it's bad for you and bad for the company. With this in mind my resumes are completely true and (if possible) relevant to the jobs I have applied for.
If I am asked to hire someone I would however do full checks though (not just background check, that resume and interview notes will also help you figure out how to best utilize the skills the hired help has)
Li-fan Chen
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
You have to understand that checking CV's is one of the few things recruiters can actually do, and so they've made it into a marketing tool to help justify the huge commissions and fees they take.
So they run lots of scare stories in business magazines about the importance of checking candidates' backgrounds. For recruiters, it just takes a few phone calls, which is something they can easily do. It only takes time. Employers on the other hand hate wasting the time on this.
So the issue of "lying" on CV's is part of recruiter marketing.
Inside Job
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
There's a difference between lying and what's generally called "puffery."
Saying you're very competent in Oracle because you've made ODBC calls against an Oracle database - puffery.
Saying you went to [x] University when you didn't - lying.
The person who said they'd find out you lied when they requested your grades scares me - IMHO it's kind of wrong-headed about the whole thing. Generally it takes a phone call or a fax to find out if someone attended a school. Getting their grades, OTOH, costs money, requires a signed release and won't be faxed back. And unless they're a new hire, who cares anyway?
So - five minutes to verify they went or a few hundred dollars to get their grades, which should be immaterial... hmmm....
Finally, I've been truly shocked that my background has never been verified. Like others on this thread it seems to me to be de rigeur for any new hire, esp. those who claim significant pedigrees.
Philo
Philo
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Regarding the cultural background that Burninator has found to be predisposed to serious distortion (I wouldn't call it "lying"), that would be Indian guys.
Inside Job
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
The last time I had to apply for a job; I understated my experience / skills to avoid finding myself dropped in over my head...
Bleh
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
"And unless they're a new hire, who cares anyway?"
That should be "new college hire"
Philo
Philo
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Where do you get the idea it costs a few hundred dollars to get the grades. You simply request a transcript. We do it for every hire from American Universities and they must get the degree and transcript stamped at the Saudi Cultural Mission who contact the university registry to ask them to confirm by fax that the photocopy of the degree and transcript that has just been faxed to them is in fact legitimate. It is often done while the applicant waits, and many universities don't even charge.
One thing I have found, and have been surprised by is the number of people who are teaching with "degrees" from degree mills (the kind that will be spamming you daily). Whenever I receive an application from one I sent back a reference of the particular law affecting false Uk degrees, and vague murmurings about what happens to people who give the Saudis forged certificates - I hope it causes them a couple of nights dreaming of amputation of the offending members even if it doesn't casue them to catch the next plane :)
Even more puzzling however is the number of people with perfectly legitimate degrees who will add a degree mill PhD or Masters to their CV. All that means is that one space before the comma and they're out, whereas without the false qualifications they would have been probable hires.
With regard to badges comment about how many workforces live up to their description I would say he is barking up the wrong tree. When a teacher who claimed to be "a highly motivated and dynamic empower of student based learning using the latest technology in a communcative environment" turns out to be a crushing bore who has difficulty finding the plug to the OHP you may decide to fail him during the probationary period but you don't accuse him of lying on the CV. The same goes for the puff that companies use; however if they promised a two-bedroom flat rent free and give you a one roomed bedisit, or iinsist on your working Saturdays when the contract specified a five-day week, then they are clearly in breach of contract.
Stephen Jones
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Ah, my bad. I was thinking of the few times I've had to produce transcripts and it generally wasted an hour or two of my time + a fee. I didn't think through that an HR dept that did it regularly would have it streamlined. :)
Philo
Philo
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
"...but you don't accuse him of lying on the CV"
But it _is_ lying. It's no different than saying that you have a phd from an esteemed university when actually you're a high school graduate. In both cases we're talking about outright misrepresentations of facts -- employers try to pretend (KNOWING that what they're saying is pure bullshit) that they're much hipper, funner, technically advanced and challenging workplaces, and employees often try to present themselves as more than they really are. The only difference between this sort of lying and outright lying about getting a degree is that the latter is easily verifiable.
badges...we don't need no stinkin' badges
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
This raises a lot of questions though, and I think reflects a work environment that's several decades old.
In medicine or law, and other professions several decades ago, being certified and having the degree was vital. Without that, you simply weren't capable of being a doctor. Thus lying about that was significant.
But with modern management and business degrees, and IT training, and many other things, the degrees are not actually worth much, and certainly not necessary to do the job.
For example, it's a bigger lie to say you're a C++ or Windows dev expert when you're not, than to say you've got a BS when you don't. (Actually that comparison could be subject to debate, but you get my point.)
Degrees should not be a binary thing, and for modern professions, they're often not the important component. I think the danger in misrepresenting those things is that it provides a black and white weapon to use against you if rivals find out.
.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
No! First of all, as I was reminded to my chagrin during a heated labour negotiation some years ago, when you say somebody is llying you imply intent. Unless you can read somebody els's mind it is more accurate to limit yourself to saying "What you stated is incorrect". Employers have a marvellous capacity for self-deception; many really believe their workforce is genuinely happy to be shitted on in shabby surrroundings for crappy pay. And the really incompetent employee is the first to believe that he is competent, professional and an asset to any company foolish enough to hire him.
Secondly for something to be a lie, there must be a clear distinction between true or false. Having or not having a degree is one example, and offering or not offering a creche or free accommodation is another. Having a happy workforce or being a highly motivated and disciplined worker is a matter of opinion. It's not that one lie is more easily proven false than another, it's the fact that it can easliy be proven false that makes it a lie.
stephen Jones
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
A few years back the company I worked for contracted a guy to build an e-commerce site using jsp and java for one of our clients, thinking that the guy knew what he was doing.
Sadly, our background check, if there was any, was way off the mark. The 4 week contract blew out to 6 months, and in the end we sold the code and all to the client for peanuts.
The guy we'd hired had only worked as a assistant on one good website (using basic php and html). How the hell he got the contract I have no idea.
Jack of all
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
"Employers have a marvellous capacity for self-deception; many really believe their workforce is genuinely happy to be shitted on in shabby surrroundings for crappy pay"
You really imagine the best of employers. Having been involved with the hiring process at several firms, let me first state that there is no illusions among HR and executives about how great of an employer a firm is. Here's the catch, though -- many believe that the _lie_ is acceptable, because perhaps it's just the current slackers that work there, and with this new recruits drawn in by the ideal descriptions, all will be as they described. To reiterate -- if you don't think they're laughing their asses off when knowingly, and falsely, describing their workplace, you're horribly naive.
Turn that around -- you have prospective employees who'll aggrandize their experience in a certain area under the justification that if they get the gig, they'll bone up on it and have an equivalent knowledge. Perhaps they have years of experience but limited formal training and an HR gatekeeper put up a "Must have 4 year CS degree" barrier so they stuck a manufactured/paper mill degree on there to get past the first defenses.
I'm not justifying lying, but from a human perspective I can certainly understand it. I also see absolutely no differentiation between employer lying (which is absolutely rampant), and employee lying (which is probably just as rampant). In fact I consider the former far more insidious given that the employer usually holds the power position.
badges...we don't need no stinkin' badges
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I garee, you don't want people to lie. I agree with the policy of not hiring people you've found to have lied on their resume, no matter how much you like them.
However, on the resume writing side of it, as a former boss told me, "there is a multi-faceted diamond of truth". In other words you should realise that it's not hard to write a resume that doesn't lie, but still presents you in a favourable light.
Just be vague when it helps you to be vague, and specific when it helps you to be specific.
Sum Dum Gai
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Oh, here's a tip: if an HR person asks you "ok, look, everyone lies on their resume, so hey, where are the stretchers on yours?", DO NOT go over the points you'd clarify in a (more) technical interview with another engineer. Example:
Me: "I put java on my list of programming languages because I worked through the Sun Java tutorial and then wrote a couple little things for myself and I'd really like to get on a java project: you'll notice I don't claim any java experience on paid projects."
HR person: "Ok, so we've established you're a liar. What else have you lied to us about?"
(the correct answer is "There aren't any, what's on the paper is how it is." Save such clarifications for when someone specifically asks you:"I notice you list java, but you don't have any java projects listed, what's your experience with java?")
There's a cheesy book titled Never Be Lied To Again that details these and other "techniques" to see if someone is lying to you. It's not so useful for its explicit purpose, but I do recommend say, leafing through it at a library to get an idea of when someone is coming from the assumption that you will probably lie to them.
Brent
Thursday, March 18, 2004
One of my best friends got a position as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs in Chicago. 5 months later they fired him because he did not disclose at the time of application that he was arrested for driving a stolen vehicle.
He did not steal the vehicle, simply was borrowing it from a friend who did steal it (used to run with a bad crowd). He was 18 at the time, parents did not have much money to afford a good lawyer, and never got the record erased.
Anonymous
Thursday, March 18, 2004
I've noticed that immigration officers ask "have you ever been arrested?", not "have you ever been convicted?", which seems a little strange.
Christopher Wells
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Another give-away question that appears on employee tests apparently is to ask something like whether you would take home a pen or a few envelopes from the office.
Even though both cost a few cents and grabbing them from your desk saves you 30 minutes shopping at lunch time, thus increasing your productivity, the correct answer is No.
The highly paid consultants from accounting firms who steal extra hours and charge $2 a page for photocopying documents that were never needed tell management that anyone who thinks it's OK to steal a pen will steal other things.
CEO On The Take
Thursday, March 18, 2004
I'm a recent college grad, and I've had some experience with this issue.
First off, lying on your resume is a "skill" that many learn in school. In my OS programming class, one assignment was apparently tough enough to drive 65% of the class into fraud (i.e. copying code from elsewhere). Those of us who sweated our asses off to actually write our own code were astounded by the cheaters' reply when confronted: "What? It's called software reuse. It's the way industry works."
Second, the pressure to lie is *immense* for recent grads. Not just strong, compelling, or what have you, but immense. Why? Because the job market is very cruel right now. Some working programmers, especially those who have been around awhile, seem to be incapable of understanding just how cruel. Besides, a CS education is in a lot of ways like a medical or law degree: you can't *really* do the job out of school; someone has to take a chance on you and give you real-world experience. But hardly anyone cares about those things anymore.
And why's that? I, for one, blame the .com bubble. In '99 so many companies were screaming for developers that they got a little carried away with their hiring, and they hired a lot of bozos who did not belong in development positions. And now, there's a lot of those bozos (along with truly talented developers) out of work and willing to work for what recent grads make. The suits look at a resume, see experience on one, none on the other--guess which one goes to the bit-bin.
Have I lied on my resume? No. I've been looking for over six months and have not found a job. Fellow students of mine did lie on resumes, and got jobs (yes, I know this for a fact). So there you go.
John Haren
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Dear John,
How are employers actually going to expect somebody who's just graduated to actually have anything to lie about?
I do understand the point about students "cheating" on assignments when they are so difficult it would be impossible to do them otherwise. Grossly unrealistic explanations are amazingly oommon in the academic world, and it is not uncommon to have courses where every academic who teaches them knows that it is impossible to insist on the standards without a 1005 failure rate, but are not in a position to change requriements set in stone.
The question about have you ever taken a pen from the office is interesting (anybody who has ever interviewed me normally becomes awere of the correct answer when they look for their own pen sometime after the interview and realize I've walked off with it!). I discussed this with a psychologist who wrote and adiminstered these tests and she insisted that questions such as this were put in so that you could tell if the candidates were telling the truth answering the other questions, since anybody who claims he has never pilfered anything or told a lie is obviously a bullshit artist. On the other hand it does seem clear that anybody who admits to running of with a ten cent bic will not get hired for Merry Maids, MacDonalds, or Walmart.
Possibly the questions were originally devised to catch out liars but American managers insisted on perverting the use of them, or possibly a higher standard of honesty is expected of entry level job seekers, or possibly mangers decided that what was important was that the worker paid lip service to virtue.
Stephen Jones
Friday, March 19, 2004
I have never lied on a CV. I certainly have made the most of what I've done but never to the point of making statements that are deceptive. I expect honesty from the people that I work with, there is no other way.
If I caught someone out in a lie in an interview I would blow them out on the spot. If I cought someone out in a lie on a CV later on down the line I wouldn't fire them on the spot. If I thought that person had gained maturity and integrity and was a good contributor, I might settle for a seriously squirm-o-genic one-on-one discussion. I expect that I would ultimately sack the person 95% of the time though.
Woodentongue
Friday, March 19, 2004
quote: "How are employers actually going to expect somebody who's just graduated to actually have anything to lie about?"
Well, that's exactly the issue. What these fellow students of mine have done is make up employment that they never had. It's easy--just pick some defunct .com, claim you worked for them. Either you'll get caught or you won't, but either way it doesn't matter, since if your resume doesn't show experience you won't get hired in the first place.
As for the difficulty of academic assignments, I haven't seen it. My assignments were involved and took planning and good ol' fashioned work to accomplish, but how is that any different from what any of you experience every day? The fact is those cheating students didn't want to do the work. BTW, the prof was furious and publicly scolded the students: "If you don't want to spend 30 hrs. a week writing code in college, how are going to feel about spending 50+ hrs a week writing code for a living? Do us all a favor and find some other line of work."
John Haren
Friday, March 19, 2004
The experience many got from working for defunct dot coms was so close to zero that it's hard to say claiming you did qualifies as a lie :)
Stephen Jones
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
"After some experience with reviewing resumes (CVs), I've learned to be *extremely* skeptical of the experience listed on people from certain, very specific cultural backgrounds (no, I won't name them here)."
I've got a "very specific" name: bigot.
jqb
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
"a really good way to spot a liar is that when you question something he has said he gets really really offended instead of trying to back it up or explain it further. "
Sounds just like the Bush administration.
jqb
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Other good ways to spot lies are: too much eye contact (overcompensation), trying to hide the face, sitting on hands to stop subconscious face-hiding, stating facts which you are expected to believe as questions (please please believe me), loss of hand articulation, etc.
Woodentongue
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
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