By Robert Kirby

| The Salt Lake Tribune

My first job application consisted of ringing Army Heltzer’s doorbell and asking if I could deliver newspapers for him. Army gave me a blank piece of paper and told me to list my qualifications.

Note: I have no idea why Mr. Heltzer was called "Army." Maybe it was because he was unable to communicate without cursing and had a watery tattoo of Mickey Mouse riding a bomb.

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I was only 10 and it was my first real job application, so I didn’t have many (any) qualifications. I wrote my first résumé right there on Army’s porch. And I padded it.

"I have a bike. I throw good. I am a orfin [sic]."

The "orphan" part was a straight-up lie. I didn’t want Army calling my parents to check on my dependability. They’d tell him the truth. Also, I figured that being an orphan made me appear that much more available.

I was hired. Every day I delivered 60-plus copies of the Idaho Statesman, or as Army called it, "the #&*%! newspaper." By the end of the week, I was calling it that, too.

I learned something from the experience, namely that résumé padding is handy. Outright lying is even better. Since then, I have lied on every single employment application/résumé, including the one that got me this job.

Somewhere in a personnel file is a finely crafted bit of employment fiction that asserts I had previously interviewed a number of world leaders, including Hulk Hogan and Nancy Reagan. For references, I wrote "Rocket J. Squirrel."

Jay Shelledy, The Tribune’s editor back then, hired me. His first order concerned my résumé: "Save that crap for the &$*#@! column."

Even in the best of times, most of us pad our résumés. In today’s job market, padding is an absolute necessity. It ranges from simple embellishment to complete fabrication.

But how much do qualifications really matter? For a job as a night janitor, I once listed a master’s degree from Princeton and a doctorate from MIT. I got the job, which proved either that the competition for it was ferocious or that nobody actually looked at my résumé.

It turns out telling the truth doesn’t work all that well, either. I once embellished my qualifications in order to NOT get a job. Going through my pre-induction assessment for the military, I was asked to list any illegal drugs I had ever taken.

I wrote down every drug I could think of, including a few I hadn’t actually tried yet — but would be willing to do so "for the sake of my country." Didn’t work. I still got hired.

Most people are able to finesse their résumés without resorting to easily disproved lies. Slight embellishment is enough.

If you’ve been to Zimbabwe and waved at a couple of American kids digging a well, you can write down that you once worked "with" the Peace Corps.

Likewise, you can mail yourself a military medal and then embellish the fact by saying you "received" the Good Conduct Medal. It’s not a complete lie. It’s just a huge stretch of the truth.

Unfortunately it’s a hirer’s market these days. Employers can afford to be more selective, which includes real scrutiny of résumés. If you list "NASA astronaut" on yours, you better have actually been in space.

Good thing I already got a job.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/notpatbagley.