How Not to Get a Job: Fake Your Credentials

“I have resigned as MIT’s Dean of Admissions because very regrettably, I misled the Institute about my academic credentials.

“I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to MIT 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my resume when I applied for my current job or at any time since.”

In this message, Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admits that she falsified her credentials when she applied for a job. The New York Times reports that for many years Jones had represented herself as having degrees from Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She didn’t even have bachelors. The Times continues:

A spokesman for Rensselaer said that while Ms. Jones did not graduate from the institution, she was a part-time nonmatriculated student during the 1974-75 school year. The other colleges said they had no record of her.

Since I started recruiting in 1991, I’ve found about twenty candidates who have faked degrees or schools. They didn’t get an offer, or had the offer rescinded.

This continues to be the easiest fraud to perpetrate, even though it is the easiest to uncover. Lazy recruiters let things like this slide.

HERE’S THE WISDOM:
For Candidates: Don’t fake a degree. Don’t even think about it.
For Recruiters: Trust but verify. The two big sites for confirming degrees are the National Student Clearing House and DegreeCheck. If the school isn’t listed, contact either the Office of Admissions and Records or the Registrar.

How Not to Hire: True Tales from the Trenches

Oi! Here’s what gives my profession a bad name. My good buddy Mark is conducting a search, and had an interesting run-in with a recruiter. Here are his own words:

As a recruiter you’ll appreciate this:

The other day, I had a phone interview with a big company in the Twin Cities, conducted by what turned out to be Ms. Young Clueless HR 2007. She asked a standard set of questions, then asked if I had any… which she then couldn’t answer. I asked basic stuff, like how many states the company had ops in, what the actual job duties were, etc. She even guessed at the location thing, “Gee, I’m not sure… ummm, 13, maybe 15 states… I dunno.”

But my favorite part was at the end when she pitched me the job by skipping over the job duties and in a sing-songy voice gave me the bullet-pointed rundown on the benefits, ending with (and I quote), “And we have a really neat 401-K!”

Really neat interview, I must say.

Later,

Mark

As one of the SHRM presidents said long ago (I’m paraphrasing), “The biggest obstacle to success in Human Resources is that there are no barriers to entry.” No wonder people say “I Hate HR!”

How Not to Get A Job: Interview tips from WorkAustin.com

Yo, Dog! If you’re looking for jobs in Austin, Texas, check them out!
www.WorkAustin.com

The Small Confluence of the CEA and REA

An interesting note from this week’s review of the Recruiting Excellence Awards (for corporate recruiting) and the Creative Excellence Awards (for advertising/branding agencies) is the lack of crossover. I expected to see some of the same names of the top REA winners on the top CEA client lists. It didn’t happen.

It looks like only five companies show up on both lists:

Fair Isaac (NAS)
FedEx (Hodes)
Microsoft (JWT)
Sodexho (TMP)
Starbucks (NAS)

Granted, the CEA listed 60 companies, and REA only listed 18. Also, the military recruiters in the CEA list are not in the same class as the corporate warriors in the REA. However, it is interesting to note the differences between the two lists.

CEA: Client Boxscore

When the CEA data is sliced another way, we see that the CIA and TMP cleaned up in several categories.

Client	Agency	Grand Prizes	1st Place	Total
Central Intelligence Agency	TMP	2	6	8
Microsoft	JWT	1	4	6 *
Monster	TMP		3	3
Advertisers of The Houston Chronicle	self	1	1	2
Comcast	Alstin	1	1	2
Conoco Phillips	TMP		2	2
Evercare	Rada Adv.	1	1	2
Fairfax County Public Schools	TMP	1	1	2
FSC Securities Corporation	Hodes	1	1	2
Invitrogen	J. Morrison		2	2
Nevada State Bank	Review-Journal	1	1	2
Orange County Dept. of Social Services	JWT	1	1	2
Rabobank	Hodes	1	1	2
US Navy	Campbell-Ewald	1	1	2

* Microsoft and JWT received the special Dansker Award – it is counted in the total.
Statistical note: Only Clients with a total of at least two (2) are shown.

CEA: Agency Box Score from 2007 Awards

A few pivot tables later, here is the promised box score from the CEA event:

Agency/Company	1st Place	Grand	Dansker
TMP Worldwide	23	3
Bernard Hodes Group	15	2
JWT Employment Communications	10	3	1
NAS Recruitment Communications	3
Shaker Recruitment Advertising	3
Alstin Advertising	2	1
Campbell-Ewald	2	1
J. Morrison Group	2
Maximum	2
Houston Chronicle	1	1

Statistical note: all results for one company have been combined. This means that results from international companies have been combined with their parent.

Only the top 10 1st place awardees are shown. To be truly accurate, I’d have to know how many entries each agency submitted in each category, but I don’t have that information.

CEA: The results are in!

The CEA Results are In! Check them out here.

I’ll dig in and provide some commentary after I have a chance to dice the statistics, but you can start by looking yourself.

Tip+: Are You Ugly?

Master Burnett and recruiting über-guru Dr. John Sullivan have an article that works for both recruiters, and for candidates. They start by reminding companies about a point that should be obvious:

Discovering what applicants can read about your organization online

It should come as no surprise that when candidates are deciding whether or not to accept a job opportunity or target a specific employer during a job search, information found online plays a major role.

Sullivan and Burnett then list the top sources candidate use to look up info on companies. The major search engines are obvious, but Sullivan lists other sources that may not be so obvious.

WHO SHOULD USE THIS ARTICLE:
1. Corporate recruiters should read it for sources check up on the buzz about their company.
2. Candidates should read it to make sure they’re not missing an easy source of intel.

Find the article here.

CEA: No results yet

The folks at who attended the Creative Excellence Awards at SHRM’s Staffing Management Conference & Exposition in New Orleans had a great time at the party. Maybe they all partied hard, and are still recovering, because no results have been posted on the CEA site.

Stand by…

Tip: Job Search eBooks (FREE!)

While you’re visiting the CareerHub web page, go download their Free Job Search eBooks. Topics are:
1. Insider’s Guide to Job Search
2. Insider’s Guide to Resume Writing
3. Insider’s Guide to Interviewing

Did I mention that they’re free?