Moving Targets

Recruiters want to know what kind of superstar you are, so everybody sends in resumes how awesome their past and present roles are. Because if it is not superstar-worthy, why bother inviting them over?

Applicants then inflate their roles and responsibilities, fluff their achievements, and try to fool the recruiters into thinking "this guy is Superman, we need to hire him pronto".

Of course recruiters now do their background checking, using the social media to their best advantage. And new applicants are doing their best to use the social media in the way it suits their value the best.

It's basically the case of nature versus the mousetrap. Someone invents a better mousetrap, nature comes up with a better mouse. So too are LinkedIn and Twitter; recruiter finds new tools to determine a candidate's value, the candidate finds a new way to artificially increase his value.

And in the end both sides have more work to do...