Everyone says don't lie on your resume. But nobody talks about where the actual line is.
I know the obvious stuff. Don't fake a degree. Don't claim jobs you never had. Nobody's arguing that.
But there's a whole grey area that nobody actually talks about honestly and I think most people are living in it.
Things like:
Listing a skill you technically know but would panic if they tested you on it in an interview. Is that lying or just optimism.
Stretching employment dates by a month or two to make a gap look smaller. Everyone knows gaps are penalised. Is closing a one month gap really the same as fabricating experience.
Calling yourself a lead when you were never officially given that title but you were genuinely doing that work. Your employer just never updated your job title.
Rounding up numbers. You improved something by 23% but you wrote 25%. Is that a lie or just how resumes work.
I'm not trying to get anyone to admit to anything. I'm just genuinely confused about where embellishment ends and lying starts because the advice I keep seeing treats them as the same thing and I don't think they are.
Where do you draw the line? And has anyone ever actually faced consequences for something in the grey zone rather than the obvious stuff?