Putting your CV together? Complete honesty might not be the best policy

Writing a CV requires important decisions. What should you include, what should you leave out – and how honest should you be?

One particularly tricky dilemma that might come up is whether to disclose weaknesses on your CV or remain silent about them. Common sense suggests it’s not advisable to advertise your flaws, but what about important information that employers might expect you to supply? Could the omission of such details look suspicious?

Research^[1] my colleague and I conducted looks at this specific question, focusing on the academic qualifications of new graduates entering the job market. And it provides a clear, evidence-based answer: if your grades are low, you are better off not disclosing this.

Complete honesty is not the best policy.

In the UK, where we did the research, most universities award undergraduate degrees on a scale: first-class, upper second (2:1), lower second (2:2) and third. While a first or 2:1 is often seen as evidence of strong performance, lower degrees are held in lower esteem.

A graduate jobseeker with a lower classification has a choice of what to reveal on their CV. They can be upfront about it, or they could simply state that they have a degree, without mentioning the class. (A third option, to lie about the class is probably a bad idea because employers can and do ask for proof.)

Perhaps surprisingly, traditional economic theory would probably favour fronting up. Interactions like this, where a “seller” (in our case, a jobseeker supplying their skills) holds information about their quality that they can voluntarily disclose or not to “buyers” (here, employers), have been popular subjects for analysts^[2] of game theory (the mathematical study of strategic interactions).

The idea starts with the notion that people who fail to supply available evidence about their quality look like they have something to hide. Some economists have concluded^[3] that buyers will assume non-disclosing sellers must be not merely bad, but of the lowest possible quality level.

In our context, this means employers would think that any graduate whose CV omits degree classification information has a third-class degree, and should treat them accordingly. To avoid this, it would be in the interests of any applicant who earned a 2:2 or higher to disclose it.

To see how jobseekers actually behave, we analysed the CVs of recent graduates on the job website Monster. We noticed that a substantial minority left their degree class undisclosed. Included among them, presumably, were plenty of applicants with at least a 2:2.

To work out whether these applicants were making a mistake, we also conducted a large experiment, sending more than 12,000 applications to genuine graduate job vacancies. These varied only in the jobseeker’s degree classification, and whether this was disclosed on their CV, with other details kept the same.

Success was measured by how often applications resulted in invitations for an interview or further communication. As expected, the most successful of our applications were those with a first-class degree.

However, those who said nothing about degree class were not the least successful. Instead, their success rate was in between that achieved by jobseekers disclosing 2:1s and 2:2s. Applicants who openly reported a third-class degree were the least likely to receive a response.

Put simply then, full disclosure harmed their chances.

Our findings challenge the neat logic of traditional economic theory. If employers always assumed the worst about missing information, hiding poor grades should not help.

Yet in practice, it seems recruiters do not have time to scrutinise every detail. Faced with hundreds of applications, they may skim CVs, focusing on standout positives or negatives. If the grade is not there, it may simply go unnoticed.

Of course, interviewers might ask about grades later in the application process, but by initially concealing this information, otherwise unattractive applicants can help themselves get to the interview stage, at which point they can use other qualities to impress.

The practical message of our research is clear. If you have strong academic credentials, highlight them proudly. But if your results are weaker, you are under no obligation to advertise them. Omitting them will not guarantee success, but it may increase your chances.

The graduate job market remains highly competitive. Yet our study suggests that lower grades do not need to define a candidate’s prospects, provided they make careful choices about self-presentation.

Strategic omissions may help level the playing field for those whose academic record does not reflect their potential. So if you have recently graduated with a third, there’s no need to panic, and no need to mention it either.

References

1. ^{^} Research (www.sciencedirect.com)
2. ^{^} analysts (www.jstor.org)
3. ^{^} have concluded (www.jstor.org)
4. ^{^} Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock (www.shutterstock.com)