Last week, I received an offer letter from a smaller company. The problem is, I outright lied pretty egregiously on my resume - I stretched the end date of my last job 22 months so I wouldn’t have a gap. I also exaggerated the title at that job and a previous job, although not egregiously. I’m worried now because the offer I have in front of me is for a finance-related job, so the background check appears to be extremely thorough. It’s done through OneSource, which I could not find any information on anywhere - I know some BGC companies are lazier than others. The thing that adds a wrinkle into this is that this most recent job was for a company in a foreign, but English-speaking country - and the company only exists there. These are the three options I see for myself:

  1. Fill out the background check form with the fake dates and when the report inevitably gets flagged and the new company comes to me asking wtf is up with this crazy discrepancy, play dumb and say something like “I started initially with a contract and I guess they must’ve created a new employee file for me when they renewed it”. The issue I see with this is that the new company will no doubt ask for another form of proof, probably paychecks, and then I’ll be screwed anyways because no way am I messing around with that.

  2. Fill out the form with the true dates. However, due to the obviously thorough nature of the background check, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new company receives a thorough report that lists the jobs, job titles, and dates, rather than just a simple “Pass”. I would then be even more screwed than with option 1.

  3. The nuclear option - I have a good friend who works in HR at the former company who I could ask to lie for me. The issues with this are that there is no guarantee that he is the one the background checker talks to when they call/email (although it’s quite a small HR department so the odds are decent), and more importantly, I don’t know if they’d go along with it. I don’t want to risk a friendship I value for something like this, but if it’s my only option, I may have to.

What do you all recommend? It’s not the end of the world if the offer gets rescinded, it’s not a particularly small industry so I’m not too worried about my reputation being maligned, but I do really want the job.