Is Your Job Not What You Expected? You Could Be a Victim of ‘Career Catfishing’

Have you ever been excited to start a new job only to find out a few weeks later that it’s completely different than what you expected? You may have been ‘career catfished’.

‘Career catfishing’ is when an employer or an employee misrepresents the job posting or themselves.

According to a survey of more than 1,400 workers by Monster, an employment website, nearly four out of five (79%) workers reported that they’d been ‘catfished’ into a job that didn’t match the recruiter’s description. And 13% said they had ‘catfished’ an employer by misrepresenting their own credentials.

On the employer side, this could mean inaccurately describing what the work duties are or misrepresenting what the work culture is like. For employees, this could mean lying about your skills or experience to make yourself look better to a prospective employer.

What Should You Do if You’ve Been ‘Career Catfished’ by an Employer?

Vicki Salemi, a career expert at Monster, suggests having the job description in hand before having an honest conversation with your boss.

“They can talk to their boss and say, ‘I’m doing what I want to be—I want to be an excellent performer in my job … but I have questions,” Salemi says. “You don’t want to put them on the defense. You just want to have a conversation.”

She recommends pointing out any disconnect between the job description and the duties you have now. While some bosses may be understanding, others may not, so you may consider searching for another job that better aligns with what you want.

In order to avoid being ‘catfished’ in the future, Salemi suggests looking out for certain indicators. For example, your role might shift more frequently at a start-up than it does at a large corporation that’s been in business for decades.

And when you’re looking for a new job, make sure to do your due diligence.

“Try to talk to people through your network who have worked there—or currently work there—about the company culture, because they’ll be able to hopefully tell you, especially if they were recently hired, ‘yes, when I started working here, this is the job that I was hired to do,'” Salemi says.

In fact, some states have laws that require employers to be transparent about the nature of the work an employee is expected to do.

How To Avoid ‘Career Catfishing’ as an Employee

When you’re applying to a job, it may be be easy to embellish a little on your resume. Perhaps you exaggerated by claiming that you’re proficient in Python.

But lying can hurt you once you land the job, as you may be required to show off those coding skills that you don’t actually have.

In the Monster survey, nearly two-thirds of workers said that they believed they currently work with someone who misrepresented their qualifications.

“It’s very easy to present yourself as you would like to be, as opposed to the way you really are,” Robert Feldman, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told the New York Times in 2022.

So while fibbing can boost your chances of getting the job, you’ll want to make sure you can actually do the job.

The Bottom Line

Both employees and employers can participate in ‘career catfishing’. If, as an employee, you find yourself in a situation where your job doesn’t match the job description, try to have an honest conversation with your boss about it. If things are unlikely to change, it may be time to start scouring job sites for new roles.

On the other hand, if you’re the one misrepresenting yourself to potential employers, consider how it could affect your job performance once you start working. If you lie about having certain skills that are essential for the job, you may not be able to meet the job expectations—and besides, it’s bad karma.