They are both lies, but they are different since they aren't equal violation of the social contract. When an interviewer wants to know my biggest weakness, the

They are both lies, but they are different since they aren't equal violation of the social contract. When an interviewer wants to know my biggest weakness, they don't actually want to know my biggest weakness, they want to know how I handle answering a political question where too much honesty is a bad thing. They want me to lie, but only so much. Saying something like 'I work too hard' is too big a lie. Bringing up something that is a real but minor workplace weakness and what I do to avoid it is the lie they want, and bringing up a real weakness is being too truthful. But when I say I worked at $place and did $thing with $technology, they want to me to mostly truthful. They understand there is some embellishing or generalizing, but an outright falsehood is a major violation of expectations. HR speak is about giving the desired answer, regardless if it is true, mostly true, or a straight up lie. In some way it is seen as an justifiable reason to lie where as most other lying is not considered justifiable.