Employers advise job applicants to play it safe by sticking with traditional resumes. They emphasize that stretching the truth or falsifying information on a resume can lead to dead ends as well, reported Dwight Hamilton in CA Magazine . Infocheck, a reference-checking firm, conducted a survey indicating that false or erroneous information now appears on 33 percent of all resumes, a 9 percent rise over the last year, according to Hamilton, who also noted Infocheck's finding that more employers are checking references than in previous years. Employers, too, are discovering an alarming rise in the number of resumes containing false information. The news about the stock market and the economy gets gloomier by the day.
Every day seems to bring new headlines about layoffs.
Despite these signals that employers are losing confidence in the slowing U.S. economy, columnist Jane Bryant Quinn claims that if you have to lose your job, be glad it's now. Make sure all your personal information is off your office computer since you may have very little time to vacate the workplace if you get pink-slipped. Evaluate your skills and their marketability. Take some courses if you think your skills could use updating. Change careers if it's realistic to do so, but don't assume a career change will be a magic bullet.