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There is a major difference between not giving the whole truth and simply lying. Even if you are sleazy enough to go through the trouble of obtaining a licence and tax ID number, that does not make you an entrepreneur. It gives you the <em>opportunity</em> to be one. Again, this is just low, and I hope no one takes your advice. Call me naive, but I am a strong supporter of being an honest person.
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<p>How is it a lie? You didn't say anything that was false. You were in fact running a small business. That is a factually true statement. </p>
<p>Look at it this way. Define the term 'small businessman'. It is simply somebody who runs a small business. Nowhere does it say that the business has to be profitable. In fact, plenty of small businesses aren't profitable. {Heck, many big businesses aren't profitable - i.e. Ford is posting losses in the billions of dollars right now}. </p>
<p>Again, I think it's a matter of naivete. The truth is, being hired is a pure BUSINESS arrangement. Nothing more, nothing less. Think about all of the business deals that happen every day. Do you think that when one company strikes a business deal with another company, that each company is completely honest with each other? No, of course not. THAT'S BUSINESS. That's the way business works in the real world, like it or not. For example, when Bill Gates struck a deal with IBM to license the DOS operating system for the first PC, Gates didn't tell IBM that he didn't even have an operating system ready at the time and was just going to buy it from Tim Paterson and then resell/relicense it to IBM. IBM had no idea what was going on, and Bill Gates deliberately did not tell them. THAT'S BUSINESS. We all celebrate that transaction as one of the greatest business deals in history, and put Gates on the road to becoming the richest man in the world, yet the deal would never have happened if IBM knew the whole truth. If IBM knew what was going on, IBM would have simply ignored Gates and gotten DOS directly from Paterson. Gates made a brilliant business deal PRECISELY because he was carefully selective with the truth. That's how business works. Similarly, the act of getting hired is a simple business transaction, nothing more, nothing less. Neither party (the employee or the employer) is telling the whole truth. Again, that's business.</p>
<p>Guys, keep the following in mind. A resume is an advertisement of your capabilities. It's a way to market yourself. Nothing more, nothing less. When companies advertise their products, do they tell you the whole truth? I don't think so. They don't lie in the sense that they deliberately tell you something that is false, but they don't exactly tell you the whole truth either. They tell you only a particular subset of the truth that they think will create a sale. Similarly, the act of getting hired is a business transaction, nothing more, nothing less. Don't be naive about what's really going on. Your employer isn't going to tell you the whole truth. So you need to be aware of what's going on and act accordingly. I never said that you should outright lie, but I am advocating that you be street-smart and street-savvy about what the reality of business is all about.</p>