I recently came across a blog post about an individual who lied about having a college degree in order to qualify for a job. This individual, whom the article dubs "Heather" was allowed to begin working at the company before her pre-employment screening was complete (a quite common practice as it so happens). The blog portrays Heather's story, and the perspectives of The Employee (Heather), The Manager, and The HR Representative.
As a private investigations firm that has conducted over 130 pre-employment screenings in the last year, we found this blog post to be very interesting and accurate. And thus we offer the fourth perspective, The Investigator.
We once did a background on an individual whose story sounds very similar to Heather's. For the purposes of this story, lets call this individual Rachael. Rachel was offered a job by the company for whom we conduct the pre-employment screenings. As is the company's habit, Rachael was allowed to begin work before the pre-employment screening was complete. The basic background that the company requires we conduct consist of a degree verification, employment verification, and criminal history search. Rachael had only lived in one county in the last seven years, had been at the same company for over five years, and two degrees from a university that uses a degree verification database. Seems easy right? That's what we thought too until we tried to verify Rachael's degrees. Most universities, including the one Rachael claimed to get her degrees from use an online verification service to verify the receipt of a degree. When the results came back as unable to verify, we immediately contacted Rachael to let her know and request that she send us either a transcript or diploma that we could authenticate with the university.
We attempted to contact Rachael multiple times and she consistently didn't respond. When she finally returned our calls she had all sorts of apologies and excuses as to why she couldn't contact us... her phone was broken, she couldn't access her email, she was too tired etc. When we told her that the university had no record of her enrollment, she claimed that she might have received her degrees under a different name but couldn't remember, and that she couldn't possibly provide a transcript or diploma as proof of education as all of her documentation was in storage in another state.
Well, being the thorough investigators that we are we ran another search on her degree using her maiden name, mother's last name and variations thereof. "No Records Found". Not just that she didn't' have a degree, but the school had no record of her attendance at all. Rachael then told us that she could get the documents out of storage when she returned to her home state for Thanksgiving (which at that point was over a month away). The company agreed to this and the completion of Rachael's background was deferred until after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving came and went. We contacted Rachael to request the documents, which she was instructed by the company, that she was required to provide in order to keep her job. That's when Rachael told us that she hadn't had the time to dig through her storage unit to get to her diplomas.
Rachael clearly lied about her educational background, a fact that we knew in the initial stages of the screening process. And when we are faced with an individual who has lied about their background, we can expect to have to do twice the amount of work. Not only do we have to determine the validity of the information provided, but we also have to spend time on the other lies that are told to cover up the first one as was the case with Rachael. Uncomfortable as it may be for an individual to realize they've been caught in their lie, its extremely frustrating for many other parties. The company that hired that individual has to decide what to do with that information and the best way to proceed especially if the individual was already working as Rachael and Heather both were. The HR department has to worry about protecting the company, the managers and coworkers have to deal with potentially training another new person, and the investigator (if applicable) has to deal with the loss of time and money that is the result of chasing down untruths. Furthermore, as a private investigations firm that is contracted to conduct the pre-employment screenings, we have no control over the results of the individuals employment status. All we were able to do with Rachael was report to the company that she had lied, what her lies were, and how we came to that determination. The decision whether or not to keep an employee like Rachael is entirely up to the company and once our report is done, our part in the hiring process is complete. But as we are a business as well, we still have to deal with the loss of money, time, and resources that are repercussions of sorting through false information.
To use a few cliches here friends, the moral of the story is honesty is the best policy. It really is better for all parties involved if a potential employee is honest about their background. As you can see in Heather's and Rachael's situations, the results of telling a lie about a degree, or any portion of a background for that matter, is ultimately very awkward and uncomfortable.
To read the blog that inspired this post go to The TransparentMe Blog
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