Comments on: Here’s Why You Should Do Background Checks

By: Kathy

Kathy — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 15:41:00 +0000

I wonder if part of the problem here isn’t that people often conflate confidence and chutzpah with actual skill. The Dunning Krueger effect says that people who are least capable are most confident and vice versa. But I have seen many occasions in which a person who exhibited confidence far beyond what his skills warranted had impressed his boss more than did his humble but capable colleague. Time and time again I’ve seen a manager swallow excuses for failure and outlandish promises for next time and continue to value the confident guy above the quiet dependable employee. I wonder if the same magical effect of confidence isn’t what convinces a potential employer that it’s okay to forego the background check.

By: Annie

Annie — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 14:25:12 +0000

I worked for a company that had this happen. An E-VP was hired at this small company in the South. He claimed a graduate degree from a small, elite college far away that a relative of his attended. What were the odds that one of his new colleagues went there, too?! It happened. He was busted. A cleanup crew (including me) was called in under a new HR person. We did background checks, made personal (medical, sensitive info) folders separate from personnel folders, lots of salary spreadsheets to align pay, and other random things that no one had done before.

By: Elizabeth West

Elizabeth West — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 14:14:02 +0000

Yowza!
I always struggled to make my resume sound impressive with only admin jobs on it, but I would never outright LIE. It will always come back to bite you. And who wants to have to worry about it?
A relative of mine who used to work as a recruiter once told me to fudge my resume; she said all her friends did it, they just lied to get jobs and then learned as they went. This same person then turned around later and told me she had to let a contractor go because the person misrepresented herself. I was over here like *mouth hanging open*
I finally have a better resume that focuses on accomplishments. No need to fib.

By: Simone Temple

Simone Temple — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 13:17:11 +0000

This reminds me of this guy who was on Dateline years back. He gets all kinds of jobs, including executive-level roles, using a fake resume. For references, he gives companies numbers that come back to his phone and he answers with a different voice. Eventually, his background check comes back and he’s fired and then he moves on to the next employer. At one point, he impersonated a priest and even performed marriages (he’s basically a less-than-moral version of Jared from The Pretender if anyone remembers that show).

As an aside, I wonder if the move to virtual companies and permanent WFH in many cases is going to make it easier to fake references. My firm has a main number but we’re all encouraged to use Google Voice numbers. Plus, many corporate phone systems can be set to forward calls to cell phones. I could be thinking I’m calling George at Vandelay Industries but instead be speaking with his buddy Jerry.

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 10:57:41 +0000

I caught an educator in a lie about having his doctorate. Our college failed to properly vet him (before my time ) but a neighboring college verified degrees and contacted us. It didn’t take long to see his diploma was from a diploma mill and his excuse for not having official transcripts was that he owed parking tickets and couldn’t get it. We lowered his pay for the semester in which he was teaching (doctorate not necessary; pay based on degree) and terminated once grades were turned in.

By: Evil HR Lady

Evil HR Lady — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 10:57:20 +0000

In reply to grannybunny. Yeah, he could have gotten away with it if he hadn't lied about the companies he worked for and the degrees he had.

By: grannybunny

grannybunny — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 10:49:28 +0000

I cannot imagine NOT background-checking prospective hires. In this case, it might not have picked up that he didn’t accumulate all those awards, but I expect that it most certainly would have caught that he didn’t work everywhere he claimed and lacked a graduate degree.