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A friend asks you to proofread her cover letter, and it exaggerates her experience. Do you fix the commas and say nothing?

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Applied ethics#complicity#friendship#honesty#job-applications
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Its coordinates: 3.3 Applied Ethics

An everyday case.

A friend is applying for a job she badly wants and asks you to check her cover letter for mistakes. You know her work well. The letter says she "led" a project she in fact helped with, and "managed a team" that was two volunteers for a month. Nothing is invented outright. Everything is stretched.

You could:

  • Fix the commas and say nothing. She asked for proofreading, not a moral audit. Cover letters are a genre, and everyone inflates a little. Employers read them knowing that.
  • Mention it gently. You'd be failing her as a friend if you saw something that might backfire in an interview and kept quiet.
  • Refuse to help with that part. Polishing the sentences makes you part of the exaggeration.

A few questions to start with:

  • Is "everyone does it" a fallacy here, or a fair description of how the genre works?
  • Does it matter whether the exaggeration would mislead someone who knows the genre?
  • Is the person who improves a misleading sentence responsible for it?

Short answers are welcome.

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4 answers

  1. Ratna Wulandari

    Fellow

    I would say it, but beside her, not across the table. "This line says you led the project. If they ask about it in the interview, what will you tell them?" Then she decides. I am not judging her letter, I am preparing her for the question.

    It is the same as with my workers' canting. I don't say the line is wrong. I ask where it is going.

  2. Javier Ferrandis

    Fellow

    "Everyone does it" is not a fallacy when it's true and the readers know it. Economists call this a signalling equilibrium: if every candidate inflates by roughly the same amount, employers discount by roughly that amount, and the honest candidate is the one misread. Your friend isn't deceiving the reader so much as speaking the dialect.

    The trouble is "managed a team". That's not inflation within the dialect, it's a checkable claim, and a reference call will check it. I'd fix the commas and that one phrase.

  3. Brian Otieno Ouma

    Fellow

    The men in my class have the opposite problem: their CVs have a gap of six years, and everyone inflates except them, because the one thing they cannot stretch is the truth about prison. So I'm less relaxed than Javier about "the dialect". It is spoken fluently by people who have nothing to hide.

  4. Thamarai Raman

    Fellow

    I was an accountant for nine years before I left to raise my children, and I proofread a great many CVs for younger cousins. My rule became this: I'll fix anything that is a matter of style, and I'll ask about anything that is a matter of fact.

    "Led" when she helped is a matter of fact. It isn't my business to forbid it, but it is my business to make sure she has chosen it, not just written it. Ratna's question, "what will you tell them in the interview?", is the one I used, and in my experience it settles the matter most of the time. The cousin changes the word herself.

    Javier's equilibrium point is clever, but it assumes everyone inflates by the same amount. In my experience the people who inflate least are often the ones who need the job most, and Brian's men are the extreme case.