I have no ethical problem with people lying to get jobs, as long as the lies don't pertain to the job itself.
Job fraud (getting a job you can't perform, or where the risks are too high) is unethical. If you claim you're a doctor and you're not (quackery) or lie in a government security clearance process, you're doing something immoral (and also quite illegal).
However, people often lie, in effect, (a) to inflate their social status, (b) to simplify a complicated story under the (correct) assumption that most people are shallow and averse to complexity, (c) to improve their apparent leverage in negotiation, and (d) to hide embarrassments that are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I have no problem with people who do that, even if they're lying about objective facts (job titles, performance reviews, dates of employment). The currencies they are counterfeiting (workplace social status, managerial blessing) have no legitimacy anyway.
Job fraud (getting a job you can't perform, or where the risks are too high) is unethical. If you claim you're a doctor and you're not (quackery) or lie in a government security clearance process, you're doing something immoral (and also quite illegal).
However, people often lie, in effect, (a) to inflate their social status, (b) to simplify a complicated story under the (correct) assumption that most people are shallow and averse to complexity, (c) to improve their apparent leverage in negotiation, and (d) to hide embarrassments that are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I have no problem with people who do that, even if they're lying about objective facts (job titles, performance reviews, dates of employment). The currencies they are counterfeiting (workplace social status, managerial blessing) have no legitimacy anyway.