As college seniors hurtle into the job hunt, little
lies on the resume-for example, claiming a degree when they’re three credits shy
of graduation-seem harmless enough. So new grads ought to read this memo now:
those 20-year-old falsehoods on cream-colored, 32-1b. premium paper have ruined
so many highprofile executives that you wonder who in the business world hasn’t
got the message. A resume listing two fabricated degrees led to the resignation
of David Edmondson, CEO of RadioShack, in February. Untruthful resume have also
hindered the careers of executives at the U.S. Olympic Committee.
The headlines haven’t dented job seekers’ desire to dissemble even as
employers have grown increasingly able to detect deception. InfoLink Screening
Services, a background-checking company, estimates that 14% of job applicants in
the U.S. lie about their education on their resumes.
Employees
who lie to get in the door can cause untold damage on a business, experts say,
from staining the reputation and credibility of a firm to upending co-workers
and projects to igniting shareholder wrath-and that’s if the lie is found out.
Even when it isn’t, the falsified resume can indicate a deeply rooted
inclination toward unethical behavior.
"There’s a lot of
evidence that those who cheat on job applications also cheat in school and in
life," says Richard Grfffith, director of the industrial and organizational
psychology program at the Florida Institute of Technology. "If someone
says they have a degree and they don’t, I’d have little faith that person would
tell the truth when it came to financial statements and so on."
Employers’ fears have sparked a boom in the background-screening industry. But
guarding the henhouse does little good if the fox is already nestled inside. To
unmask the deceivers among them, some employers are conducting checks upon
promotion. Verified Person markets its ability to provide ongoing employee
screening through automated criminal checks. With this increased alertness comes
a thorny new dilemma: figuring out whether every lie is really a fireable
offense. Many bosses feel that a worker’s track record on the job speaks more
strongly than a stretched resume, says John Challenger of the outplacement firm
Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Rather than booting talented workers,
Challenger suggests, employers should offer a pardon period. "A moratorium would
let anyone who needs to come clean," he says And the culprit could always go
back to school and finish that degree-maybe even on company time.By citing the examples of David Edmondson, the author intends to show
that
