Forgive me my Sins
In 2017, after graduating, I joined a big IT corporate as an Associate Consultant (Engineer). My start date was delayed by six months, and four months in, I was benched with half my already very low pay.
Money was tight with rent and other expenses. My family expected me to start investing in jewellery and buying land.
I was new to Bangalore and wanted more money to visit bars and expensive restaurants every weekend. Wanted to buy a bike with good gear. Along the dream to have a girl riding behind me. Sab Aukat ke bahar.
As one does, I started looking out into startups. The problem - 0 relevant work ex.
So here it goes, I had interned at a startup in college and knew what their documents looked like. Filled the 6 empty months in my CV with a job as a “SDE-I Android” working with the founder directly. I spiced up my CV with claims of 2x load time, reducing costs, international team collaboration, and an award. Some college awards to boot too!
I made a detailed fake job story, read interview books, solved questions and watched salary negotiation videos. Eventually, I got into a Series A startup with only having to make 1 fake certificate. They never checked with my previous employers, and now I earn eight times what I would have.
The guilt and imposter syndrome haunted me until I started performing well. I still feel guilty, like last Holi when my family praised my achievements.
Just excused myself and went for a smoke and a ride out. The bike is here and it is a custom painted beauty.
Guilty thoughts still go by occasionally but I am becoming more and more comfortably numb to it every passing year.
I have since stopped outright lying and just partake in the standard resume inflation.
Had to let this out.
Good for you I guess. Job interviews are a random and unfair process any ways.
My man, There are people who have worked hard all their childhood, college and office lives to try to reach where you are. Hope you always count your privileges.
Sometimes it’s good to vent it out.. May be you can help someone in training who is not a good performer or under PIPs, that way you might feel a little good about urself that if u had not lied & wouldn’t be in this position as today to help someone else.
Not recommend to do again but entry jobs are harder to crack with no exp. it’s the same “you need experience to get job, but you also need job to get experience”. So in that case it is fare what you did.
Hopefully you did justice to the job and your work. That is all that matters in the end. But don’t fake certificates and all. They are borderline as fraud because you fooled not only the company but also the ones who issue those certificates(udemy, coursera, etc). So beware of certificates and degree as but n case of experience you can fine tune what you say and your work if you can prove the same by answering their questions on the same.
It is not all ethical but to make your way into entry job this is the only thing that works. Once in the job market then you need to stand up to the standards and be transparent about your work.
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