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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by Jason Morris

Don’t Get Caught out Like Sir Alan When Hiring your Next Apprentice

Wednesday’s edition of The Apprentice contained the revelation that one of Sir Alan Sugar’s potential apprentices, Lee McQueen, had lied on his CV about his education.

Angus Sim, director in PricewaterhouseCoopers forensics practice has the following advice for companies looking to avoid a similar pitfall:

“Clearly the discovery of fraud on Lee’s CV at such a late stage in the competition was embarrassing for Sir Alan, but he is one of many bosses throughout the UK having the wool pulled over their eyes by potential employees. Research shows that up to 25% of jobseekers in the UK lie on their CVs to impress their prospective boss.

“It is tempting to say that CV fraud has always been in existence, but there are a number of factors exacerbating this. For example, the flexible and increasingly mobile labour market makes it easier for people to leave details of their past behind as they move from one place to another. In addition, there is far greater emphasis being placed on getting a candidate on board quickly at the expense of any real effort taken to perform basic checks.

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by Jason Morris

Court finds daycare director was sloppy

Howard Levitt, Financial Post  Published: Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Honesty may be the best policy, but as one Saskatchewan employer learned, to its chagrin, not every act of dishonesty justifies dismissal for cause.

Away We Go Childcare required early childhood educators for its new daycare in Melville, Sask. The board of directors proceeded to interview Ashley Berg and instructed Christy Myers, the facility’s director, to offer Berg a job. Myers recognized Berg’s name as a former classmate.

In light of the nature of the position and the potential for liability, the board expected Myers to obtain a criminal record check and keep a copy in the personnel file. Myers instead asked Berg for the document. Berg produced a record showing she had no convictions.

However, the board was left in the dark regarding a few issues: Berg omitted her last employer, Dr. Brass Daycare, from her resume and it was never told about Myers and Berg being classmates.

Shortly after Berg was hired, rumors surfaced about her employment history. A board member told Myers she learned Berg had been fired from Dr. Brass for racial slurs, compromising confidential information, and for an altercation with that facility’s director. Criminal charges allegedly had followed.

Myers assured the board member she would investigate the allegations, but failed to disclose she had previously worked with Berg. Then she investigated by getting Berg’s side of the story and did not follow-up with Dr. Brass. Berg claimed she was verbally assaulted by the director of her former employer and a bouncer at a bar. At ensuing board meetings, Myers did not report her findings. In fact, she recommended Berg fill in while she was on maternity leave.

The rumors eventually reached the rest of the board. Berg then admitted to omitting information from her resume and was terminated for resume fraud. Myers was subsequently fired for breach of trust and conduct unbefitting a director, because the board said she deliberately concealed knowledge of Berg’s employment history, and never reported on the accusations, nor conducted a thorough investigation into them. Myers sued Away We Go Daycare for wrongful dismissal.

by Jason Morris

A little resume fraud news from a Canadian blog on Trust in the Digital Era.

How should an employer deal with resume fraud?

The rise in résumé fraud can be traced to the rise in unemployment, coupled with tough competition among those competing in the labor market for what few jobs are available. Job seekers who don’t have a degree or specialized skills are inventing them out of desperation. For the employer, this translates into a significant problem since applicants who lie on their résumés often become employees who misrepresent issues on the job. It is estimated that résumé fraud costs employers approximately $600 billion annually.

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by Jason Morris

Resume lies must be a theme this week? This is for no other reason than coincidence, but there have been a lot of articles published on the topic over the past few days. This article points out that some companies use sites like Facebook and Google to conduct background checks, our readers know how we feel about that! See our latest blog posting on social networking sites. Nonetheless, this article is from Sweden where the FCRA and other laws baring the practice don’t exist.

Study: ‘lying common among job seekers’

Published: 13 May 08 17:04 CET

Nearly one in two human resource directors from Swedish companies report encountering job candidates who have lied or withheld relevant information during the recruiting process, a new study has found.

* Poll: training trumps tax cuts for job creation (12 May 08)
* Swedish labour model set for a facelift after 70 years (6 May 08)
* Making it in Sweden: the British professor (30 Apr 08)

The report, published on Tuesday by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, also found that one in eight companies perform internet searches on candidates or review their profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

“A quick internet search together with looking at a person’s profile in Facebook, for example, can give a completely different picture than what a candidate highlights in a CV,” said the Chamber in its report.

Nearly 20 percent of respondents who don’t currently check Google or Facebook said that including such searches in the recruiting process would increase their peace of mind regarding potential new hires.

About 90 percent of companies polled reported having a specific policy regarding background checks on potential employees, with 70 percent also claiming that background checks will become more important in the recruiting process over the next five years.

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by Jason Morris

I came across this story this morning while doing some research on resume fraud.  I found this interesting because it featured a few more famous resume imposter’s, ones I have not listed in the past.  I often find it mundane to keep using the same examples over and over.  According to Forbes, there are nine ways an applicant will “fib” on his or her resume:

1. Lying about getting a degree
2. Exaggerating numbers
3. Increasing previous salary
4. Playing with dates
5. Inflating titles
6. Lying about technical abilities
7. Claiming language Fluency
8. Providing a fake address
9. Padding grade point averages

There are a few more examples other than George O’Leary, Marilee Jones and David Edmonson. Now I have more names to keep future posts more interesting!

Read on!