Trying to pass a fake resume in a small world
I happen to work in a niche technical field. And although there are thousands of men and women working throughout the U.S. in my field, there are only a couple hundred or so in my region. Once you’ve been working in my field for about 5 years, you start to run across the same people and companies in job applications, postings, conferences and contracts bids.
A funny, but disturbing, thing happened this past week that made me glad I was there to help. My company is looking for a Java developer with certain other experience for our current contract and a recruiter submitted a resume to my boss to review.
Here’s where it gets good. My boss called me last Friday to ask whether I knew the job applicant from my prior job last year. The applicant stated he did some pretty impressive work at that company from 2003-2004, but I didn’t remember his name in any conversations with my boss and coworkers at the time (I started work there in late 2005), so I emailed my former colleagues to see what they had to say about this guy.
My contacts were the same individuals who started the whole practice at this company, and would certainly have known this guy given his rather unique name and claimed accomplishments. They all responded with an emphatic NO! HE’S LYING! He never worked here! I have full reason to believe my friends and former bosses, so our next step is to investigate whether this guy stole someone else’s resume or part of a resume, or if the recruiter is an idiot. We’ll still give the applicant some leeway considering when you submit your resume to a recruiter, they often submit something quite different to the hiring manager without showing it to you first.
The moral of this story: Don’t try to pass off something you didn’t do in your resume, because there’s a good chance it will be discovered one way or another.
It’s actually an interesting question. It sounds like your company did its due diligence, but I’d bet most resume fabrications don’t get caught.
An Alumni Career Networking list I am on actually had a story of the fabricated resume not only being backed up, but extended.
The justification was the person was applying for a job at a competitor and nobody liked him anyway.
Now that is sick.
Good advice on the resume histories. Eventually the truth comes out…and even if you get the job if you have embelished your skills to the point that the company is expecting a superstar and you turn to be less than that, you are set up for failure. Best to just be honest, get a foot in the door and make a good first impression.
Update: I sit in on the interview tomorrow evening. I’ll let you all know the outcome. I’m really hoping there was just a misunderstanding somewhere because he really matches our needs.
I have had a ton of problems with this lately:
http://realworldsa.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/resumelying.htm
My shortest interview was yesterday. It took 4 minutes.