> Personally know someone that became in the top 50 people at a major USA bank.
Not top 50 people but I know someone from our group of teenagers/early-twenty-agers friends who just lied to get hired for a tech company in Belgium. He never went to uni but most of his friends did, so he knew a bit the who's who / hang out with these people and he faked a resume, lied (written down) about having a diploma in economics.
He started climbing the corporate ladder in that company (I think it was HP but I don't recall all the details of this story, it was a long time ago) then after something like 10 years, he started getting cocky and thought that now he could move to another company, boasting 10 years at the previous company and this or that title he had now.
Bad luck for him: the company he applied to did a background check and realized he had no diploma (I don't know how they found out? Is that public information? But they found out anyway).
They didn't just not hire him: they warned his current employer, the one he was working for since 10 years, that he applied lying about having a diploma.
He was fired on the spot [1].
I don't know if there's any moral to this but if you lie and your lie works, you better then keep a low profile for a very long time.
[1] Some are going to ask: "If he was good at his job, why fire him?"*. To me the answer is simple: you don't want a relationship (personal or with an employer/employee) based on a lie to begin with.
> I don't know how they found out? Is that public information?
When I graduated college (UC Berkeley, very large public school in California) I had to go to the registrar to pick up my diploma since I graduated off cycle. In line in front of me was a guy who seemed to know the lady at the window well, and put down a piece of paper and said "got another list to check". The lady went into the back, so I asked the guy what he was doing.
He told me he worked for a background check company and was there about once a month with a list of names to verify graduation dates. He told me a lot of his work comes from government and big companies. He then suggested that if I was going to lie about graduating, make sure it was to a small company that can't afford background checks!
He also told me that almost every month there is at least one person who fails to have the degree they claim to have.
Dunno how long ago that was, but these days universities tell you that they're prohibited by law to disclose such information. In the US the applicable law is FERPA-- which was passed in 1974-- but there are similar rules in other countries. You might well have been witnessing a violation, it certainly happens.
The general difficulty in checking such things is part of why that form of fraud is so ubiquitous.
>Schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information such as a student's name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance. However, schools must tell parents and eligible students about directory information and allow parents and eligible students a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose directory information about them.
I'm aware as I've argued it with a number of institutions. In my experience most do not and will not, and instead demand that that they receive consent specifically from the "student"... even for parties that were never students there and by the letter of the law ought be afforded no protection.
I had an employee who lied about a diploma in ~2015. It was pretty bold, he even included a student ID number. Eventually we just called the school's registrar's office and asked if we could verify a diploma. They asked for the name and then told us they had no record of a student by that name. I asked if they could tell us if the student ID number was realistic and was told that it wasn't even close to what their ID numbers looked like.
So it looks like your mileage may vary.
IIRC, providing false information about a diploma in California is a felony.
FERPA doesn’t apply when the person has a signed agreement to allow disclosure. Same way you can request that one college send your grades to another (for grad school apps for example).
Doing a background check is the same thing. It’s authorized by the student.
For my current job I had to get proof of my degree, institution and grade.
Thos was for a degree between 1999 and 2003.
They wanted info down to the month I started... I had no idea so just guessed a month in 1999... They got back to me to check what was up as they had determined I actually started in some other month...
They even wanted proof of what High school I went to.
>I don't know how they found out? Is that public information?
Verifying degree is extremely easy in most cases - the background check company will just call the registrar. It's probably done through an API nowadays.
>To me the answer is simple: you don't want a relationship (personal or with an employer/employee) based on a lie to begin with.
Personally, if I found out and they could actually do the work, I would let it pass. I'd consider it a white lie in that case.
I think it's more of a harm to society to use degrees as requirements when they aren't actually required. This too is lying, but you won't see companies facing penalties for putting a degree requirement when one isn't necessary for the job.
If you're looking at it from just a qualifications standpoint, then you're right. However, there's more to a person than their qualifications and skills. Judgment and character matter too.
If someone were to lie to my face and waited until I caught them before owning up to it, then giving them a pass tells the world that I'm A-OK with deceit as long as they deliver results.
...the poster values not being lied to their face. 10 years of work to check back on because someone was deceitful enough to lie to your face is a hell of a blast crater, and I'm not taking responsibility for having a flat out liar running rampant in my codebase.
If you don't have a degree, don't claim it. If you can still walk the walk, you've still got a chance. If you fail basic due diligence, you're telegraphing your integrity is in question.
> 10 years of work to check back on because someone was deceitful enough to lie to your face is a hell of a blast crater, and I'm not taking responsibility for having a flat out liar running rampant in my codebase.
Let's be honest, I don't think you would ever actually do that in real life ;)
That's what the interview process is for, theoretically. Possibly you have no idea what it's like being on the hiring side, having to work with oftentimes apathetic recruiters who are in charge of the hiring funnel, candidates who claim knowledge but don't have it, or even worse are cheating. The worst is hiring the wrong person as a year can go down the tube. Meanwhile my leadership chain wants me to hire fast. My time is finite, and I've got a lot of pressure on me. I do give people the benefit of the doubt. I don't care what school you have been to if you have the right skills and work experience, but I'd be lost without resumes to narrow the field.
Not top 50 people but I know someone from our group of teenagers/early-twenty-agers friends who just lied to get hired for a tech company in Belgium. He never went to uni but most of his friends did, so he knew a bit the who's who / hang out with these people and he faked a resume, lied (written down) about having a diploma in economics.
He started climbing the corporate ladder in that company (I think it was HP but I don't recall all the details of this story, it was a long time ago) then after something like 10 years, he started getting cocky and thought that now he could move to another company, boasting 10 years at the previous company and this or that title he had now.
Bad luck for him: the company he applied to did a background check and realized he had no diploma (I don't know how they found out? Is that public information? But they found out anyway).
They didn't just not hire him: they warned his current employer, the one he was working for since 10 years, that he applied lying about having a diploma.
He was fired on the spot [1].
I don't know if there's any moral to this but if you lie and your lie works, you better then keep a low profile for a very long time.
[1] Some are going to ask: "If he was good at his job, why fire him?"*. To me the answer is simple: you don't want a relationship (personal or with an employer/employee) based on a lie to begin with.