Flawed career advice

This is my response to an article about how "Grads need honesty, dependability, work ethic" to land a job:

Let's be honest about the issue, since that's what this article says employers are looking for...

Telling students that employers desire integrity, ethics, and dependability is telling them to fake it. Who doesn't claim to be a dependable hard-worker? And who will honestly admit an ethical weakness? No one... job interviews are all about giving the right answers to convince the potential employer that they are speaking to the perfect candidate for the job.

You can't train someone to be an ethical person. Well maybe in Guantanamo you can, but not in school. A confident smile and a firm handshake can just as easily be a fraudulent betrayal of one's ethical standards, but what else do you have to bank on? You can teach them what's right/wrong, but they will still be dishonest if they are a dishonest person. Of course, you won't pick up on such during an interview because you'll be too distracted by their "self-confident dependability."

Dependability is yet another intangible trait, but employers still try to measure it against a candidate's past experience. This is a flawed metric, though, because recent grads will not have enough relevant experience to properly decipher how dependable they will be in the workplace. And high academic marks are easy enough to attain even for someone that isn't going to use good judgment in their professional life.

All in all, I think the entire system is skewed in favor of those that are dishonest enough to fake the best intentions. Someone that admits their weaknesses will be disadvantaged because, well, they have a weakness. Gee, imagine that...