Brian Williams Essentially Lied on His Resume, Or Exaggerated The Truth

Brian Williams, the iconic NBC news anchor, admitted the helicopter he was on in 2003 in Iraq did not receive enemy fire.

Williams admitted he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire. The false claim was repeated for years. For example, he told David Letterman in 2013 on The Late Show. And, here is a recent clip from the NBC Nightly News.

Williams said, “I would not have chosen to make this mistake. I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”

So, he admitted he exaggerated the truth.

Now, we all do that. I am guilty of that.

But, how many of us are guilty of it over a 12-year period on national TV?

So, let’s look at it another way. Did Brian Williams essentially lie on his resume? After all, the history that you create in your job is a resume builder. Would he tell this fictionalized account, as one of his (literally) “war stories” in his world of work, to possibly land his next job at another network like CBS, or ABC? After all, we have seen many high-powered anchors switch networks.

And, I can tell you this -- that lying on resumes is common. In fact, in 2002, I was working with the recruiter Christian & Timbers and helped conduct a study that was an analysis of 7,000 executive resumes that showed that 23% of executives misrepresent accomplishments. Of those that misrepresent them, 64% exaggerated accomplishments. The bottom line is that it is lying on a resume (although we used the word “misrepresented” at the time perhaps to soften the severity of the act.)

And, our reporting from 13 years ago has not stopped executives from stretching the truth.

The list is long. Here is a list of culprits in a New York Times article at the end of 2002. One in this article was Ronald L. Zarrella, the chief executive of Bausch & Lomb, the eye-care products maker. Perhaps, he really could not see himself clearly. (I couldn’t resist.)

More recently, in 2012, we learned about then-Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, who was dismissed after he lied on his resume, caught with an embellished college degree. His tenure as CEO was just four months.

And, in 2014, Wal-Mart’s David Tovar, the top company spokesman, claimed he had a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware, when in fact he did not. The lie was more than two decades old.

Whether you call it a lie, or an exaggeration – it is a breach of trust.

And that is what is looming over Brian Williams. A breach of his public trust. He is a trusted figure in our society. Perhaps the position of news anchor does not hold the same vaunted esteem and prestige as in the days of Edward R. Murrow, or Walter Cronkite – but nonetheless, Williams is in a position of responsibility and trust.

And when trust is broken, you almost never gain it back.

So, will Brian Williams’ conflation of the facts end his tenure at NBC? I have absolutely no idea. And, as I ask this, Williams is the news anchor I have admired the most in the past decade. I was a dedicated viewer even when he was on CNBC from 2002-2004 with a prime-time news broadcast.

And, Williams has people coming to his defense, for example CNBC’s Larry Kudlow.

But, there is one thing you can learn from the Williams debacle – if you have an “exaggeration” on your resume, fix it fast. Come to your own defense.

One thing at play in resume “fudges” and “exaggerations” of events, is good old-fashioned human nature.

If you tell yourself a lie long enough, you begin to believe your own lie. It might be why we see that Williams’ exaggeration is more than a decade old, or that the Wal-Mart executive carried a lie on a resume for more than twenty years.

Make sure your resume is updated with the truth, so when you go to your next employer, you have a clean slate. Telling your present boss you have a “mistake” on your resume might not be a good idea – it depends upon your circumstances. You can get counsel from career coaches on how to get back to the truth -- and, how to best deal with your present employer. But, there is one thing I am sure of…

The truth will set you free.

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Update: On February 7th, Brian Williams announced he will take himself off Nightly News for the "next several days." Read Brian Williams' statement here.