EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

We’ve just posted a guest article on EmployeeScreen University about the efficacy of resumes in today’s marketplace authored by Kevin W. Grossman, Chief Marketplace Evangelist at Fisher Vista, LLC and HRmarketer.com Check it out.

Okay, it’s not dead yet, but I want it to die.

I understand that there’s still a huge part of the career management industry keeping it alive, making it better and making it work for you, the job seeker. To all my friends in this industry, please forgive me, as I also understand it’s probably not going anywhere for years to come.

But I still want the painfully ubiquitous resume to die a horrible death.

Why? Because it’s a self-serving piece of inconsistently formatted and fudged professional drivel that really doesn’t help me hire true quality of fit. Just ask any background screening firm that does employment and education verifications. For example, EmployeeScreenIQ’s research yields a 52% discrepancy rate between what an applicant claims about their education and work experience and what they find when they verify such information.

Fifty-two percent. Sure, the resume helps me sift and sort to the short list, but a short list that’s almost half fabrication on the average. And if you as the job seeker take that risk and blatantly lie or embellish on your resume, and my background screening firm uncovers it, you are out of luck at a time of high unemployment where you really need a little luck.

Yes, embellishing the truth is fabrication. It doesn’t make it any better than an outright lie, especially if you’re telling me you’ve been programming native iPhone apps for the past six months and you really only took an online course six months ago and made one farting app, one that isn’t very good anyway because it sounds like a Yorkshire Terrier barking.

So what then do we put instead of this black magic resume full of lies and deceit?

Your professional online profile, of course. Like the one you better have completely up to date on LinkedIn, where thousands of recruiting professionals are scouring and sourcing every day. (And I’m not even talking about the majority of recruiting pros who search for online information about you across the internet and other social networks.) And by the way, much of the same advice you may get about building your resume applies to the online profile as well.

However, I get the fact that anybody can fudge an online profile just as well as they can a resume. But, there’s a peer pressure element of keeping one another honest in an online community where your professional history is available to everyone you’re connected with, many of whom you‘ve worked with or for at one time, if not currently, as well as the portion that’s available for public consumption if you so choose.

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Somebody didn’t do their homework…

A London man was able to gain employment as the Deputy CEO of a Middle Eastern bank after a headhunting firm located his fictitious resume online.  His resume claimed degrees from both Harvard and Oxford as well as long term employment at one of the world’s top financial institutions – J.P. Morgan.  The headhunters forwarded the resume to their client who promptly interviewed and hired the fraudster.  It was only after they had flown him to the Middle East to meet their wealthiest clients that they discovered his lies.

A few simple inquiries into this person’s past prior to a job offer would have saved this bank a little bit of money and a lot of embarrassment.

Fraudster conned his way to top bank job

A conman used a fake CV to trick his way into becoming the £165,000-a-year deputy chief executive of a City investment bank, a court heard.

By Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent – London Evening Standard – 1/31/2011

Peter Gwinnell, 49, posted a résumé online which claimed he had degrees from Oxford and Harvard and had worked for JP Morgan for 20 years.

The fake was enough to convince City headhunters Connaught Partners to put him in touch with Ahli United Bank, which was looking for a new deputy chief executive, in the autumn of 2009. Gwinnell played the role of senior banker so well that after two interviews he was appointed to the job.

He worked for a month, flying out to the Middle East several times to meet wealthy clients and collecting £14,500 in salary. It was only when Ahli ran extra checks that it realised Gwinnell’s story was a lie.

In reality he was a convicted conman who had served six months in prison in the Nineties and had not attended either university, or worked at JP Morgan. Gwinnell, of Harrow, admitted a single count of fraud and was handed a 50-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, at Southwark crown court. Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC spared him an immediate jail term after hearing he had already spent 12 weeks in custody on remand, and was suffering from serious depression.

The judge instead ordered Gwinnell to complete 100 hours of unpaid work, 18 months of supervision with a probation officer and to continue to undergo treatment for his depression.

He also banned him from uploading a CV onto the internet without the court’s permission. Sentencing, he told Gwinnell: “Somehow or other you managed to convince Connaught Partners that you were a suitable candidate for employment by the bank.

“This offence was deliberately planned, and it caused loss, but also no doubt much trouble and aggravation, and quite obviously embarrassment to the bank who determined that you were suitable for employment.”

The court heard that even after Gwinnell was questioned by police, he sent a fraudulent CV to a Swiss bank before withdrawing the job application.

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Bragging to your buddies about your days in the trenches doesn’t hurt anyone or anything, unless of course they find out you’re a big fat liar and your ego gets bruised.  Masquerading these lies as expertise and profiting from it, on the other hand, has a tremendously adverse effect on those supposed to benefit from your instruction – especially when those people are federal, state and local law enforcement agencies who need this knowledge in the event of an attack or disaster. 

This story can be added to our ever growing list of why you have to background check before you let someone in the front door.

Maryland Man Arrested for Allegedly Lying About Military Service

By Edmund DeMarche, FoxNews.com – 01/26/2011

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Here’s an interesting take on how a company can use terminated employee’s resume lies as a defense against claims of discrimination and, or retaliation. Check out this post by labor and employment attorney Jeffrey T. Rosenberg. The only catch seems to be that if you knew about the resume fraud after conducting an employment background check and still hired this person, the defense probably goes out the window. Then again, if you knew about it, why would you hire them?

As an employment attorney practicing in New York City, I feel obligated to clarify the negative consequences that can occur as a result of lying on a resume. Most cases concerning falsified resumes arise from situations in which an employee has been terminated for reasons other than lying on his or her resume (ex. poor work performance). After being terminated, the employee commences a lawsuit for unlawful discrimination and/or retaliation, and during discovery, the employer discovers for the first time that the employee’s resume that was submitted with the original job application had been falsified and is fraudulent.
Because the evidence of the resume fraud was first discovered after the termination had already occurred, this new information is called “after-acquired evidence,” and can be used by the employer as a defense to the claims of discrimination and/or retaliation.

In fact, in Quinby v. WestLB AG (2007), the Southern District of New York (federal court covering Manhattan) held that a plaintiff will not be entitled to certain remedies, such as reinstatement and front pay, if the employer can show that it would have terminated the employee anyway based on information that was not acquired until after she was terminated. However, the party asserting the “after-acquired evidence” defense must establish that the wrongdoing was of such severity that the employee would have been terminated on those grounds alone if the employer had known of it at the time of the termination.

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Usually when we talk about fake degrees, we are referring to diploma or degree mills.  There have been many stories in the news as of late about people using academic credentials purchased by these “schools” to either land a job or obtain a higher position or pay.  In addition to the issuing the diploma or degree, many of these institutions offer to verify their “authenticity” in order to make their product seem like the real deal. 

In this story, however, the degree this individual claimed was not from a diploma mill – it was from the University of Miami.  Apparently this guy thought it would be a good idea forge a degree document from the school, photocopy it and submit it to a potential employer in order to land a $127,932/year paying position.  All it took was one phone call to the University of Miami to find out he had never attended the college.  He now faces one charge of criminal possession of a forged instrument and three charges of offering a false instrument for filing.  If convicted, he could end up serving an 11-year prison sentence.

BUSTED: Sanitation construction project manager arrested for submitting a fake degree

Myles Miller, NY City Hall Examiner – May 26, 2010

MAYBE HE SHOULD HAVE GONE TO COLLEGE.

The Department of Investigation arrested city Sanitation Department construction project manager Bernard Feraca, 57 of Bronxville, NY for using a “fake academic degree to land a high paying City job”, according to DOI Commissioner Rose Gil Hearn.

Feraca, who submitted a fake Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Miami, was charged today with criminal possession of a forged instrument and three counts of offering a false instrument for filing. If convicted, Feraca could face 11 years in prison. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has assigned ADA Peter Rienzi to prosecute this case.

Fereca, joined the Department of Sanitation in February 2010, and was assigned to the Engineering Support Services unit.

His city salary was $127,932; he has been suspended without pay.

Under a city policy the DOI conducts a thorough background check of roughly 2,000 employees annually who are promoted to management positions, earn more than $80,000 annually and deal with city contracts or  super sensitive city computer programs.

According to the criminal complaint filed in Manhattan Criminal Court a DOI “investigation found that on January 22nd, 2010, the defendant submitted to DSNY a photocopy of his purported Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering.”

The investigation proved there was no record of Feraca ever being a student at the University of Miami.
On Feraca’s Facebook page he has two friends who went to the University of Miami, and lists among his likes “Big Prize Giveaways.”

This is the latest in a series of bogus diplomas and degrees from city employees. In 2007, a DOI report showed the submission of “bogus degrees” in the Fire Department. That investigation resulted in “14 disciplinary actions and improved verification procedures at the FDNY” according to the Department of Investigation.

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Did you know that EmployeeScreenIQ finds a 52% discrepancy rate between what an applicant claims about their education and work experience and what we find when we verify such information?  Check out this sage advice from John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., on resume fraud:

“As millions of Americans struggle with long-term unemployment, the temptation to stretch the truth on one’s résumé to gain a competitive advantage is becoming harder to resist. Some desperate job seekers are going so far as to establish fake references. However, the payoff may not be worth the risk, according to one employment authority.

There is very little proof that any form of résumé boosting directly results in a job interview, much less a job offer. In contrast, there are scores of examples of individuals who have been eliminated from candidacy or fired after a fraudulent résumé was uncovered.”

John offers the following advice to job seekers:

* The Short Chronological Résumé

A short chronological résumé summarizes the last 10 years of your career in reverse, briefly listing your accomplishments from the most recent to the much older.

* The Long Chronological Résumé

Use the long chronological résumé when you meet with the hiring decision maker. Its goal is to distinguish you from other contenders whose backgrounds resemble yours; therefore, focus on accomplishments, not responsibilities. This is your chance to provide a comprehensive summary of your career accomplishments.

* The Functional Résumé

A functional résumé stresses abilities such as purchasing, marketing, selling, managing or analyzing. Résumés organized by function, rather than chronology, give you an opportunity to gloss over a gap in job history or frequent job hopping. If you have many skills, this kind of résumé can market you as a sort of utility infielder who can perform well in several functions.

* Use Relevant Key Words

Increasing numbers of search firms, executive recruiters, and personnel managers initially use computer software to scan résumés for history, education, location, and so forth. Once scanned, résumés can be sorted by these key words to produce a customized list of professionals in a certain field. By including the right key words in your short chronological résumé, you can increase the chances that it will pass the screening process.

* Avoid Flash Or Gimmick

Think about the position for which you are applying. Bright florescent paper, glitter, perfume or different colored fonts seem unprofessional. Thinking outside the box is always welcome, but using gaudy tricks to catch the hiring manager’s eye will most likely irritate instead of dazzle.

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Hi everyone! This is my first post on our new platform after re-launching EmployeeScreen University this week.  So, as you can see I am very excited!  Fortunately for all of us this one will be short and to the point.

Today, The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) posted a great article to their website; Fake Job Reference Services Add New Wrinkle to Screening .  As you know this is a topic we have written about many times over the years.  In fact, we just released a great white paper on this exact subject called: Smoke, Mirrors and Resumes:  The Growing Threat of Diploma Mills.  The article touches on the importance of background checks and quality employment screening practices but more directly lays out the risk.  In it they say:

New web-based services that offer fake work histories and references to job seekers are changing the complexion of resume-padding. These services further complicate the challenges employers face in identifying and hiring honest, qualified employees.

You need to be a SHRM member to view the article!  I hope you enjoy!

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I first came across this topic earlier today reading Sam Narisi’s blog, HR Recruiting Alert.  A brilliant piece that originated from an article in last months Wall Street Journal.  Applicants are dumbing down their resumes so they don’t look OVERQUALIFIED!  In Narisi’s piece, “The New Lie Applicants Are Telling.” he states:

With jobs hard to come by, more and more applicants are lying on their resumes. But they’re not the kind of lies you’re used to.

As HR pros know, it’s not out of the question for candidates to inflate their past job titles and duties, or add academic degrees that were never completed.

But these days, many out-of-work managers are looking for stop-gap jobs and are stretching the truth in a different way — by “dumbing down” their credentials so they don’t appear overqualified.

A lot of formerly high-up employees are willing to step a few rungs down the ladder just to get a steady paycheck. Often, that requires them to convince hiring managers they won’t jump ship the moment the market improves and something better comes up.

One way their doing that: changing job titles to look less impressive, according to the Wall Street Journal. For example, one marketing exec listed her previous jobs as “manager” and “trend researcher” to “staff” and “office support.”

Candidates are also hiding degrees and other academic achievements. One woman looking for temporary clerical work said she received no calls from employers until she stopped listing her master’s degree on her resume.

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According to the Wall Street Journal’s article:

Kristin Konopka sent out nearly 100 copies of her résumé in January in search of receptionist work, but got only one callback. That’s when Ms. Konopka, a 29-year-old New York actress and yoga teacher, took her master’s degree and academic teaching experience off her résumé.

The calls started coming in. The slimmer version of her résumé landed in 30 in-boxes and earned her three callbacks and two interviews. “It definitely picked up the interest,” says Ms. Konopka, who realized quickly that people don’t “want to hire anyone who is overqualified.”

Securing work in a tight economy means more job seekers might find themselves applying for positions below their qualifications. Many unemployed professionals are willing to take paycuts for the promise of a paycheck. But to get a foot in the door, candidates are gearing down their résumés by hiding advanced degrees, changing too-lofty titles, shortening work experience descriptions, and removing awards and accolades.

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So, when we started EmployeeScreenIQ in 1999 one of our pitches was not to overpay candidates because they lied about their qualifications.  I guess employers need to be cautious and do background checks so not to pay market value when they are overqualified? Chew on that for a while???

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We are huge fans of Lisa Kaye and her company greenlightjobs. Not only is Lisa an entrepenuer and saavy business owner, she is a seasoned HR executive with experience leading some of the most recognized brands in the entertainment industry. We also happen to think that she’s a great writer.

Lisa was kind enough to write a Guest Article for employeescreen University entitled, “Don’t Lie About How Good You Are . . .”, where she lends sage advice to executives looking for jobs who are concerned about being “over-qualified”.  While many know the hazards or embellishing or lying on a resume, Lisa suggests that efforts to “dumb down” a resume can be equally harmful.

Here’s an excerpt from her article:

There is so much competition in the market place at the moment, with many former senior level executives vying for jobs far beneath their skills and qualifications it’s become a virtual (no pun intended even though we are an online recruitment company), feeding frenzy!

So how do you warn senior level execs who are being out-placed and replaced on a daily basis of the potential hazards of the job market mine field currently inhabiting our world?

Well, the first thing you tell them is not to lie about their qualifications and skills or “dummy down” their resumes in hopes of getting a look-see from some eager and hopeful recruiter looking to make a placement. This market is tough, nothing new there. In fact, most job markets even when there are an abundance of jobs available, offer its own unique challenges from which we must navigate. When jobs are a plenty, the executive is courted like a debutante at a cotillion ball. Recruiters, employers, hiring managers alike pull out all the stops and throw in more perks to entice, seduce and eventually overcome their prey-The Candidate. When jobs are scare however, there is no room for pleasantries and it’s a game of survival of the fittest. The once coveted executive must now become savvy, slick and all so focused on how and when they will be enticed, seduced and ultimately overtaken by a job offer!

So what’s the best approach to take in re-entering the job market, vying for not so senior jobs, when your resume reads like a “Who’s Who” in Executive Leadership and you were once listed on the “Top 50 Most Influential People to Watch?”

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We are seeing more and more of these stories as employers are catching on to this con game.  As background checks are now part of many employers’ hiring practices, resume lies and forged credentials are being debunked before the applicant can step through the front door.  But what about those who have already made it past the front gate and collected a paycheck (or 150)?  What you don’t know may be hurting you.

Former UNL professor arrested; police say he lied about Ph.D.

By Brandi Kruse, NewsNetNebraska – April 29, 2009

A former University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty member has been arrested on charges of fraud for misrepresenting his academic standing and pocketing a higher university salary as a result.

On April 10, UNL police launched an investigation into Bradley West, a former assistant professor of management in the UNL College of Business Administration.

“It was discovered that he did not obtain his Ph.D. but provided the UNL department a false record,” said Captain Carl Oestmann with the UNL Police Department.

Police say West gave the college a forged Ph.D. certificate from Michigan State University to keep his job as an associate professor.

Oestmann said West was offered the position in 2005 with the stipulation he finish the Ph.D.

“The offer clearly states that if he had not completed his Ph.D. … the job title would change to instructor for up to two years,” Oestmann said. 

At the end of two years, West would have been let go if he had not provided proof he had finished the degree. Oestmann said West gave the university the forged certificate in 2007, the year his position would have been terminated.

Oestmann said UNL police believe West used the forged document for monetary gain in the form of salary increases totaling more than $5,000.

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