Ask the expert: Weed lies out of your CV

Dr Marie Wilson is associate professor of management at the University of Auckland, research director of the Icehouse business accelerator and a veteran of 20 years in corporate management and small business.

I have been working in a sales position for the past four years after returning to New Zealand from overseas 4 1/2 years ago.

I have been doing well and my employers are happy with my performance. I am now at a stage where I would like to look at other opportunities in the workforce, but am faced with a moral dilemma.

On my resume, I fabricated my entire overseas work history, due to it being a time of experimentation and soul-searching in a variety of dead-end unskilled positions.

While I got away with it in securing my present position, I fear that, with the recent publicity, I may be exposed in any future reference checks by prospective employers. Please help.

I think your fear is well placed. Fortunately, you have a solid four years of successful experience in place now, which is what most employers would be most concerned about in assessing your ability.

Write up your current job thoroughly, and get rid of the fabrications in your old CV. If you have a period of time with a series of low-level jobs, have an entry for the period that captures it as a time of experimentation, listing a series of jobs that you held in a few lines.

Then you can proceed backwards to earlier accomplishments. Present your accomplishments and your experimentation positively, but do not falsify your history.

I came to Auckland from India in January. I am now working as a multimedia designer in a small development company, where my role is to create slide shows for corporate presentations.

But I am really a 3D animator and multimedia specialist. I am looking for a more rewarding job than this and my boss is very understanding, and he knows I am looking for work outside.

But what I don't understand is whenever I apply for a job, I get rejected! I haven't even been able to get to an interview! Normally, in my field, people decide about the candidates after looking at their visual work.

But I am getting rejected after they have seen my resume. I have almost five years of experience and have done tons of projects - architecture walkthroughs, websites, interactive CD-Roms, graphic design print-based, and for films and television.

Can you tell me what the reason could be? My CV is fine, as I have checked it with other recruitment agencies and others in my field. I would be very happy if you can give a honest opinion. I am an Indian male, 26 years old, speak very good English, very communicative and good-looking.

Well, you've asked for feedback from two good sources. That's a great start, but I think you should really ask those who decided not to interview you.

If this is a highly visual industry, then some illustrations in your CV, or an e-CV with direct links to examples of your work, might be more effective. Ask those who have actually seen your CV in the context of a search (instead of friends or recruiters who don't have the same context or background) what you could do to improve; then follow their advice and try again.

* Send your questions to: julie_middleton@nzherald.co.nz