A copy of George Deutsch’s resume?
Seattle Post-Intelligencer – February 13, 2006:
Talking yourself up to a prospective employer is a time-honored tradition. But come this summer, inflating your resume could be downright illegal.
State legislators are considering a bill that would subject people to a $1,000 fine for claiming in writing to have an academic degree they don’t really have or failing to disclose that a listed degree came from an unaccredited institution.
The bill passed the House last week and now goes to the Senate.
Good, talking oneself up and making up facts are two different things.
I am big on honesty, this sounds reasonable although like libel, the line between exaggeration and lying can be nebulous in many cases.
I would like to see the same go for employers: if they advertise a job, say development, and then have you do something else, there should be a fine as well.
Where are these places that degrees make a big difference? Sure make it illegal to claim one, but given how much they seem to be worth, I can’t see much point.
I have 2 engineering degrees from a genuine, accredited institution, and they don’t seem to be worth a warm cup of spit. If you can’t show 4 years of .NET, ASP.NET and Java, then don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Do we really need a law for this? Honesty is the expected norm for everybody. Is it really necessary to enforce this with a criminal fine given that we handle this just fine in society by firing such liars.
2 cents from a Washington State resident.
Several years ago I read 30 resumes for a job we had posted. I sensed most of the applicants had lied about their work experience and so-called “skills”. My staff and I created a very simple test covering tasks our future employee would perform. Each and every one of the applicants miserably failed our tests. Unfair test? The hardest task was to perform a simple mail-merge. None were able to perform this task and EVERY applicant claimed proficiency! We ended up promoting and training from within.
So do we need a law? I think not but I well understand the temptation…
Cheese, my resume’ is for real, but it still hasn’t got me hired yet after 6 months. Why? Don’t do Java, and haven’t got 4 years experience in .Net. Nevermind that VB.Net is similar enough to VB 6 that a Microsoft utility can do the initial conversion (except for things like array bounds other than 0 to n).
i agree with the policy,
Adding degrees you don’t have is out right fraud.
An interesting part of faking a resume and getting caught is that once one is convicted the evidence is public information. All the resume information would be available using Google or LexisNexis. Would anybody seeking a job want that sort of exposure? Any savvy HR Department could run a search cross-referencing a few items in the resume and see the conviction. Bad times for the faking risk taker!
cheese
I understand your need for a test. I don’t know the position you were hiring for, but I assume it was for a secretary. I consider myself proficient in WORD, good in Excel and passable with difficulty in PowerPoint. I have never done a mail merge because I have never needed to do one. Give me a half hour to figure it out or give me a ten minute demo and I’ll have it. WORD is such a large program with hundreds of uses that it is quite possible to be very good at it but still not know everything. Anytime I had a 100% failure rate, I would certainly check out the test to see if it was fair and objective.
I agree though that promoting from within is a better plan. First, you already know the person’s personality, attendance, and capabilities. Second, the person already knows you and your needs, the job environment, and their co-workers.