by Jason Morris

I got an interesting email from our Director of Compliance titled “Ironic Spam!”  I guess this spammer didn’t know they were sending this to an expert in compliance in the pre-employment screening industry.  Her made up title, not the subject line of the email:

Subject:  Submit your nomination for a Degree

WHAT A GREAT IDEA!

We provide a concept that will allow anyone with sufficient work experience to obtain a fully verifiable University Degree.

Bachelors, Masters or even a Doctorate.

For US: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Outside US: +1-XXX-XXX-XXXX
“Just leave your NAME & PHONE NO. (with CountryCode)” in the voicemail.

Our staff will get back to you in next few days!

These criminals will go to great lengths to sell you a degree.  According to an article in the SouthTown Star, the FBI set up an investigation in the 1980’s called Dipscam.  It was the largest federal effort to combat degree and diploma mills.  Before the internet the bogus industry went into decline.  “However, the internet has injected such schemes with steroids, and they’re grwoing feversihly.“  Fortunately, with the emergence of the employment screening industry, background checks are uncovering more and more diploma mills.  This is also leading to a more educated human resource professional, curbing resume fraud.

The consequences of this fraud can be serious, especially in the medical field. In 1997, an 8-year-old girl, Rose Kolitwenzew, was treated by a doctor who supposedly had a medical degree from the British West Indies Medical College, but no such college existed. The man’s instructions led to the girl’s death.

It appears the state of Alabama is learning its lesson from recent stories in New Jersey.  Last week we reported New Jersey educators benefiting from fake or online degrees. Now, Alabama education officials are looking into internet courses and degrees.  The state has also taken action against four Birmingham based online colleges.  All Unaccredited!

by Jason Morris

I guess you can’t technically call this resume fraud? This is a terrible and negligent practice by educators, but isn’t prevented by the NJ Department of Education.  A degree with no academic value gives educators and administrators a nice pay raise.  The only chance of this practice coming back to haunt them is a quality background check when they go to find their next job.

N.J. Educators Free to use Diploma Mills

Taxpayers foot the bill for tuition

By ALAN GUENTHER • Gannett New Jersey • August 17, 2008

Psst . . . Wanna buy a degree from a diploma mill and stick taxpayers with the bill?

If you’re a public school educator, New Jersey won’t stop you.

State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy said she is powerless to prevent local school boards from handing out tax money to administrators who boost their pay by obtaining degrees with little or no academic value.

When it issued a nine-page report last week, the department entered a growing national controversy about the value of online degrees. But instead of announcing tough new standards, the department made only a few suggestions.

“I feel sorry for New Jersey. Here they had an opportunity to step up to the plate, and they opted not to,” said former FBI agent Allen Ezell, who investigated diploma mill fraud for 11 years, then wrote three books on the subject. “I would have thought New Jersey would have had a little more brass than that.”

Freehold Regional High School District became the epicenter of the diploma mill controversy in New Jersey when the superintendent and two top administrators obtained degrees from an online school that has been deemed an “apparent diploma mill” by Alabama officials.

After completing an investigation into the administrators’ degrees, the education department’s report stated there was “no sustainable evidence” that the administrators “possessed the prerequisite intent to deceive when they obtained the degrees” from Breyer State University, which has been chased out of two states and an African country.

The education department report suggested — but did not require — that high school administrators, in the future, earn college degrees from reputable, accredited schools.

None of the three administrators investigated — Superintendent H. James Wasser, Assistant Superintendent Donna Evangelista and recently retired Assistant Superintendent Frank Tanzini — was required to pay back the $10,750 they received in taxpayer money to obtain degrees from Breyer State.

The board gave raises — $2,500 each per year — for their advanced degrees.

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by Jason Morris

This article does not focus on background checks.  It does however give great tips to hiring professionals on how to deter the applicant from lying to you.

3 WAYS TO CATCH JOB APPLICANTS WHO LIE TO YOU

Dr. Michael Mercer

You can use pre-employment tests, interview tricks and more to uncover if a job applicant is lying to you or embellishing the truth.

Question: Did you ever have a job applicant lie to you or, to be charitable, embellish the truth?

Answer: You probably answered, “Yes.”

This is important. In my third book, “Hire the Best and Avoid the Rest,” I often have been quoted as writing, “Whatever behavior you see from an applicant in the screening process is likely the best behavior you will see from that person.” So, if an applicant lies on your tests, interviews and forms, that person also may be dishonest in work he or she does, if you hire the person.

But, don´t worry. Reason: I will reveal to you methods you can use to

a. discover if an applicant lied to you

b. make an applicant hesitant to lie to you

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by Jason Morris

The moral of this story; Hiring managers will do background checks and uncover resume lies!

Résumés are a critical part of any job search. They are the most effective marketing tool any of us have about who we are and what we can do. And all of us want our résumé to be the best possible representation of our work.

But some workers turn their résumés into a work of fiction instead of a representation of fact. A CareerBuilder.com survey of hiring managers and workers looked at the tall tales and bold lies used on résumés.

Story Highlights:

• Many job applicants get too creative on resumes, making false claims

• Highest rate of resume dishonesty reported in hospitality industry

• College attendance, graduation is easy to verify; don’t claim degree not earned

• Most companies disqualified candidates after discovering their dishonest

Here are the 10 most outrageous whoppers, as reported by hiring managers:

1. Candidate claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family

2. Applicant invented a school that did not exist

3. Job seeker submitted a résumé with someone else’s photo inserted into the document

4. Candidate claimed to be a member of Mensa
Don’t Miss

5. Applicant claimed to have worked for the hiring manager before, but never had

6. Job seeker claimed to be the CEO of a company when he was an hourly employee

7. Candidate listed military experience dating back to before he was born

8. Job seeker included samples of work, which were actually those of the interviewer

9. Applicant claimed to be Hispanic when he was 100 percent Caucasian

10. Candidate claimed to have been a professional baseball player

Modifying your résumé is a lot like airbrushing a photo, and many of us may have made minor tweaks to our résumés. You may have revised a job title that sounded uninspiring or omitted a hellish work experience from your list.

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by Jason Morris

When lying on your resume goes wrong! This interview goes wrong when she is asked to demonstrate something on her resume. A little Sunday humor!

When lying on resume goes wrong - Watch more free videos

by Jason Morris

My mother always taught me not to seek benefit from others misery.  Normally I would agree with her. I usually do! Unfortunately I won’t in this case, sorry mom!  I have no admiration or tolerance for people who lie on their resume.  Yesterday we wrote about Donald Trumps advise on resume fraud, today we find a serious offender. Who do you blame, the liar….or the districts failure to conduct a proper background check?

ALBION, N.Y. - The superintendent of an upstate school district faces a felony charge for allegedly lying on his resume, claiming he served 17 years as a state trooper.

State police arrested 48-year-old Richard Galante Wednesday and charged him with offering a false instrument.

Galante became superintenent of the Medina School District in Orleans County in 2003 after working in the district since 2000.

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by Jason Morris

India, one of the largest pools of IT professionals in the world is seeing an increased need for background checks.  One of the reasons we launched employeescreen University was to educate employers across the globe on the virtues of doing proper employee background investigations.  One bad hire can cost your company millions in lost revenue and a lot of embarrassment.  Global background checks or “international background screening” is a growing trend. (Read employeescreenIQ 2009 Trends).

This story is a perfect example of why organizations need to tighten up their hiring practices.

IT Firms Have No Place for a Fake Resume

The IT-BPO industry is becoming increasingly clear that a fake resume can cost you your job with India’s largest IT serivces provider, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), being the latest to recently ask close to 20 employees at its Kolkata centre to leave. The company, during the background verification, found that these employees have used fudged resumes to get jobs.

In the recent past all the major IT firms including Infosys, Satyam and Wipro Technologies and many mid-cap firms have taken a hard stand on fake or fudged resumes. However, the incidents continue. First Advantage, a leading background screening firm, in its recent report states that 30 per cent of all the resumes they have screened have discrepancies. In 2006-07 the company screened over 2 million applicants across industries. Ashish Dehade, managing director (West Asia), First Advantage says, “The percentage has been increasing. In 2006 it was 16-17 per cent, for 2007 its was 30 per cent and while we are just six months into 2008 the percentage is around 30 per cent.”

TCS is not the only firm doing this. Earlier Infosys had asked close to 100 employees to leave in FY07 due to discrepancies found in the resumes. Same goes for Satyam and Wipro Technologies. Some time back it was reported that Wipro would be sharing with other IT firms the database of job applicants who have faked information in their CVs.

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by Jason Morris

From a great blog we have quoted in the past, The Trust Foundation.

This site has had several articles in the past covering background checks and resume fraud.

Dixie and Steven K Randock Sr., after three years of investigation, were finally caught and charged for producing degrees from made up universities. For a couple thousand dollars, this couple handed out seemingly-legitimate undergrad and masters degrees that required very little or no education. The Randcocks did not just produce the diplomas, but took steps to make sure the degrees looked as credible as possible. For example, they staffed an office of people who would pick up the phone when employers would call to verify the degrees. They also produced some fake degrees from legitimate universities; doing so became much easier as Universities began to offer online classes and degrees.

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by Jason Morris

Depending on who you believe, either some, many or most job applicants stretch the truth in their resumes. Here are the most common lies HR managers are being told.

The issue’s gotten some press lately, as both Food Network chef Robert Irvine and Lee McQueen, a contestant on the British version of The Apprentice, were recently ousted as having lied to get their TV jobs.

Apparently they aren’t alone — 48% of job-seekers have stretched the truth on a resume, while 10% have told bold-faced lies, according to a survey by Monster.com. Other studies report discrepancies in as many as 56% of all resumes.

Things you’ll find in a background check

What truths are being stretched? These are the most common areas:

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by Jason Morris

I am not a fan of reality television, I don’t watch a single one of them.  I wish I knew about The Apprentice on the BBC in the UK, I understand it has sparked a nationwide debate on CV lies.  I wrote about this last week without understanding the true impact, this guy flat out lied on national television. This story will now be included in my future presentations. Lee McQueen will now be mentioned with the same vigor as George O’leary, Marilee Jones and Robert Irvine! Its nice to see the importance of doing background checks get some international attention.

Michelle Rodger: Liar beware: porkies on your CV will come back to haunt you

By Michelle Rodger

I UNDERSTAND Sir Alan Sugar is already looking for new victims (sorry, contestants) for next year’s Apprentice. The recruitment advert on the BBC Apprentice website makes for interesting reading: “As usual he will be looking for someone ‘drop dead shrewd’ – someone with some business experience and obvious real potential, a leader with a wide range of skills, who is creative, sparky and bright.”

Sounds about right, doesn’t it? But wait a minute, there’s something missing, what could it be? Spelling ability? No, that isn’t important for an Apprenticeship. Oh, that’s it, there’s no mention of skills in CV-manipulation. Nor an ability to turn four months into two years.

Step up Lee McQueen, Apprentice contestant, time traveller and alleged university graduate. Tut tut tut. What a naughty boy.

I have to be honest, Lee wouldn’t have got past the very first stage in my company recruitment process. Did you see the spelling and grammar on his CV (”tommorrow”, “ambtion” and “recoinged” just for starters)? Interview him? I think not. Appalling. But worse, much worse, was his dishonesty.

Lying on his CV about the dates he attended university was bad enough, but when caught out by Sir Alan’s Viglen chief executive Bordan Tkachuk, he blatantly lied again and failed to apologise when backed so far into a corner his backside must have been positively triangular.

Surely BBC researchers would have checked the facts when Lee applied to take part? Or did they already know and allow him through, knowing it would all come tumbling out in the end to make for great Wednesday night viewing?

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