Lots and lots and lots of people are already lying. Hard to compete with that.
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A quant analyst working at some firm was told to steal Bernie Madoff's lunch. When he realized Bernie was 100% accurate on his predictions and it was obviously bullshit, he told his bosses, and filed four appeals with the SEC, but no one would listen:
I had a 21 year old neighbor who (as a research project) tailored an outlandishly fake resume for a job offer with many fake years of experience, many fake letters of recommendation and fake phone numbers from friends who would praise him into the sky. While he would have fitted perfectly (they said) he didn't get the job because the other applicant had more experience and was younger. He was baffled someone lied even more.
Signaling is already shit with mighty high requirements which are BS like 'need 5 years of experience in the field' for a junior position.
Everyone got bills to pay, can't blame anyone for lying. If you put ridiculously high expectations, this is what you get. Go full ham on little white lies. Exaggerate like they exaggerate about how fun the environment is to work in. If it were truly a superb place, the position was already filled to begin with.
From there, look for something else. The best thing to do (and I hate it) is start searching while being employed. Doesn't matter which job. Just do whatever and state you're overqualified (but try not to trash talk your current position). That way, you get some of your self-esteem back, you'll have less stress.
> That way, you get some of your self-esteem back, you'll have less stress.
Seriously this is something you have to start figuring out. Nobody can get refused hundreds of times and not get into self-doubt. Once out of a few referrals, I actually take the time to write back to whoever refused, even if it's a dead mailbox, just so I can tell to myself hey buddy, look at how I can do this job. I take their offer line by line and tell them why I am the best to do it. Come to think of it, I should do that for cover letters.
The reason the requirements are so high is because everyone is lying. The solution isn't to lie more, it's to stop lying altogether and punish defectors. For example, putting people who say, "go full ham on little white lies," on a do-not-hire list.
I wrote white lies, then I wrote about exaggerating, and I said I cannot blame anyone for lying. You're on about lying. There is a difference. White lies are commonly made every day, while flat out lying is more rare. I'm not a proponent of big lies because they're easily found out, and possibly against the law. But little white lies? People get away with that all the time.
If you want to go against the flow and change the world, sure, be honest all the time. Unfortunately, my experience is that on short-term (with regards to the issue at hand) you're better off with white lies. Yes, because 'everyone does it'. Do I like that? No, I don't, but it is what it is.
I don't think "everyone's doing it" or "it's costly to go against the flow" makes something right, just painful. We can acknowledge something is wrong without deciding it's worth the pain to fight.