Cheaters never prosper
I recently read an online story about an investigation going on in British Columbia, Canada about the head of a local health clinic who is being accused of exaggerating and possibly outright lying about his scholastic achievements and is facing possible criminal charges as a result.
Specifically, police aren’t sure that he has all the degrees – including several doctorates – that he claims he has. He’s facing criminal charges based on the fact that he had been hired numerous times to provide testimony in court as an “expert witness” where his scholastic credentials were at least partially responsible for the court and his clients viewing him as an expert who was qualified to act in this capacity.
In essence, the qualifications and degrees that he allegedly holds were largely responsible (along with his actual experience presumably) of helping to establish himself in the minds of other people as an expert. If in fact he doesn’t hold all of these designations, he will have only established himself as a liar and fraud.
Oddly but perhaps not surprisingly, some of the organizations who have used his services never checked to see that he actually held the designations he claimed. As a recruiter, I can’t think of too many occasions where a person was asked by the hiring company to actually produce school transcripts or a copy of their degree although I have seen this happen a few times.
I suspect as time goes on, this level of fact-checking will probably increase as the incidents of fake degrees, resume mills and falsely-claimed designations increases.
Certainly, in cases where a person is being hired for their expertise involving medical, legal, security, financial, health or other important sectors, you’d expect (and hope) that these industries would be more likely to properly vet their potential staff just to be safe.
I recall one of my former recruitment colleagues telling me of an incident last year where a contractor lost out on a 1 year contract when he couldn’t produce evidence that he actually held the Masters degree shown in his resume.
Moral of the story: If you’re an employer, do your due diligence and don’t take shortcuts. If you’re an employee, don’t lie or embellish in your resume.
As the health clinic “professional” in BC is finding out, lying about your achievements can involve more than just getting fired.
