Have you lied about your education to get a job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a recipe for living in fear. Suppose somebody finds out 10 years later and you get fired? Unlikely, but it does happen.

Most of my jobs have required background checks so I have never lied.

I'm not advocating lying in the least but how would a background check verify education? Doesn't it just review criminal history?

My job is to run background checks for investment banks, law firms, etc. We have a database just for verifying degrees, otherwise we contact the university directly. It is a standard procedure and our clients consider a lie about education to be a major red flag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My boss was removed from a 300k a yr job because of a lie on his resume from 13 years prior. He had marked that he graduated with an MBA when in fact he had only completed about half of the program at the time of his hire. He finished the program about 6 years later but still it was an outright lie. One of his grad teachers was hired by our company as an outside consultant and he was outed somehow, not sure exactly how.

Sounds really fishy. I think this was just the excuse given but there was likely something more going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DON'T do it! It's fraud, isn't it? Well, it's a pretty serious lie.

I really question your moral character that you're even thinking about it.

OP here, the only reason I would consider this is because I'll have my masters in August and if I apply now, I probably won't hear back from prospective employers until August or later when the degree is completed.

Don't lie - if they find out prior to hiring you - you may be banned from the company all together. I've also seen it happen where there were problem employees (or people who politically fell out of favor) and to get rid of him/her easier, HR went back and checked EVERYTHING, looking for a lie and a reason to fire.

Don't be so sure a company won't call you back w/expected graduation date in August. I've seen many instances of companies waiting for the graduate to finish (roughly 4 in the last year in my department alone). Also - the hiring process can take a while. So if you're applying now, even if you already had the degree, it might not all work out until August anyway.

Aside from the fact that it's just wrong, I also think the bolded is a good point. And it's almost July. People are going on vacation, things are slowing down in many workplaces. Chances are many employers wouldn't be ready to bring you in immediately anyway. Seems like lying is all risk for very little reward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DON'T do it! It's fraud, isn't it? Well, it's a pretty serious lie.

I really question your moral character that you're even thinking about it.

OP here, the only reason I would consider this is because I'll have my masters in August and if I apply now, I probably won't hear back from prospective employers until August or later when the degree is completed.

Then just indicate you expect to complete your degree in August! Don't lie.

[Anonymous]

Eh, who cares? When you get found out, you'll be gone and your career and reputation destroyed. Move aside and make room for the honest workers.

[Anonymous]

List it under "education" but with a date clearly in the future. Then you don't have to use "anticipated" but you're not lying either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:List it under "education" but with a date clearly in the future. Then you don't have to use "anticipated" but you're not lying either.

Should there be a current date on the resume so that if you don't receive the degree on the expected date, when someone looks at the resume in the future, it won't look like you were lying?

[Anonymous]

My company theoretically verifies all applicants credentials, but sometimes after hire. We had one person that I know who lied about a M.S....Turns out with out the degree we could not legally bill the customer. So, it became a big federal case. The person is pretty much blacklisted, and my company had to return his salary for the 6 months before we found out (and disclosed) the error. There was some talk of criminal penalties for the individual, but I do not think that happened.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I have failed to list my PhD early in my career when applying for jobs after some people told me they don't hire PhD's because they are too arrogant.

[Anonymous]

Haven't you see the show Community? That's the whole reason Jeff is stuck in community college hell.

[Anonymous]

Don't do it. Former colleague fired when she overstated her grad school entrance exams scores. Yes, for real. A lot of big firms hire companies to thoroughly review every piece of your résumé and application.

[Anonymous]

I'm a recruiter and we always verify education before hiring someone. Always. If you said in your resume that you have a degree and don't, we would not hire you and we would flag you in our files for the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DON'T do it! It's fraud, isn't it? Well, it's a pretty serious lie.

I really question your moral character that you're even thinking about it.

OP here, the only reason I would consider this is because I'll have my masters in August and if I apply now, I probably won't hear back from prospective employers until August or later when the degree is completed.

Wow, OP, you need to stop considering this. Hopefully, you already have. I've been searching for a job since last fall, and have seen job descriptions I'd love to have applied for. But before I finished my degree requirements in the spring, I couldn't. They were looking for someone who'd finished degree requirements, and that was that. Sad, but end of story as far as I was concerned. You can always try to go ahead and apply anyway, explaining that your degree's just around the corner, but you absolutely have to be upfront about your degree status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My boss was removed from a 300k a yr job because of a lie on his resume from 13 years prior. He had marked that he graduated with an MBA when in fact he had only completed about half of the program at the time of his hire. He finished the program about 6 years later but still it was an outright lie. One of his grad teachers was hired by our company as an outside consultant and he was outed somehow, not sure exactly how.

Sounds really fishy. I think this was just the excuse given but there was likely something more going on.

Nah, the lying is enough. If he lied about the grad school degree, then what else has he lied about? EVERYTHING he does is now in question--did he lie about that travel expense report he just turned in? Was his kid really so sick that he had to stay home last month? It's just not worth it for an employer to continually question someone, even for a stellar employee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My boss was removed from a 300k a yr job because of a lie on his resume from 13 years prior. He had marked that he graduated with an MBA when in fact he had only completed about half of the program at the time of his hire. He finished the program about 6 years later but still it was an outright lie. One of his grad teachers was hired by our company as an outside consultant and he was outed somehow, not sure exactly how.

Sounds really fishy. I think this was just the excuse given but there was likely something more going on.

I doubt it. I would fire someone for just this, no doubt. Shows an extreme lack of character.