A BIG FIB COULD MEAN TEN YEARS IN PRISON (YIKES!) – BUT WHAT ABOUT A LITTLE WHITE LIE?
Job-hunting graduates have been shocked to learn that lying on their CV could land them in prison for up to ten years. Given the shortage of positions available for young people in the UK, isn’t that a bit harsh? And what exactly is a ‘lie’ anyway?
Fraud prevention officers have sent a new guide to every university in the country warning students and graduates of the consequences of inflating their degree grade, doctoring their employment history or making up personal references.
Some graduates have been jailed for six months for lying on job application forms, it emerged, but the offence carries a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in the most serious cases. Graduates caught fibbing could also see their name logged on a Internal Fraud Database for six years (whether they get the job or not). As this list can be accessed by other employers, those graduates could effectively find themselves being blacklisted for other jobs in the future.
Many of Graduate Fog’s readers – bright, ambitious graduates keen to get their career started in a dog-eat-dog job market – will have felt tempted to fib about their degree, skills or experience when applying for a graduate position. Often, the list of skills and experience demanded by employers is long. And graduates may not realise that it’s a criminal offence to be anything other than honest.
But Simon Dukes, chief executive of CIFAS, the UK fraud prevention service, cautioned graduates against embellishing their CVs, saying “ignorance isn’t an excuse if you get caught out”.
And Steve Girdler, Managing Director at HireRight, warned graduates not to assume fibbing is okay because ‘everyone does it’, saying:
“Graduates often hear in the media or from peers that it is standard practice to inflate claims on a CV. But employers do check information, especially in graduate roles where there can be little to choose between different candidates. Errors and ‘white lies’ could be the difference between getting to the next stage of the recruitment process and being sent home.”
The guide — Don’t finish your career before it starts — explains that making minor changes to CVs such as inflating grades and making up extra-curricular activities can be classed as “fraud by false representation”. It is punishable with a maximum 10-year prison sentence under the Fraud Act 2006. The guide says:
“Your dream job asks for a 2:1, but you’ve got a 2:2 — so you just make a little change on your CV. You’re worried you don’t have enough work experience — so you pretend your summer of trekking through Nepal was actually spent working at a local solicitor’s firm. After all, no one really checks, right? It’s just a little white lie, right? Wrong. It’s fraud.”
The easy-to-read, four-page guide (definitely worth taking a look at) says one former student was jailed for 12 weeks after lying about his qualifications when applying for a job as a temporary teacher.
He claimed to hold a master’s degree and submitted a certificate to the school, but his university confirmed he had never been awarded the qualification. He later admitted to buying it online.
The disclosure came as figures showed a sharp rise in employment-related fraud, with prosecutions soaring by almost 60 per cent in just 12 months.
Graduate Fog would never recommend lying on a CV or application form – and not just because it’s illegal. Interviews are stressful enough without having to remember what you’ve fibbed about, and saying you have skills or experience you don’t can tie you in knots if you do get the job. It’s also just a really bad start to the employer-employee relationship, to kick off with a lie.
However, we do recommend presenting yourself in the best light possible – and emphasising the best bits of any experience you have, while minimising the least exciting parts. Is that lying? Or just doing what it takes to get a graduate position in a tough job market? Where do you draw the line?
*HAVE YOU EVER FIBBED IN A JOB APPLICATION OR INTERVIEW?
Did you feel you had to? If you’ve never lied, have you ever exaggerated your skills or experience? Do you have no sympathy for liars – or do you feel a prison sentence a bit harsh? Given that many employers demand long lists of skills and experience from recent graduates (when were you meant to get those?), could you argue that in some cases graduates have no choice but to lie?
Punishing graduates for embellishing their CV’s isn’t the answer to the shortage of job vacancies in the ever competitive graduate job market.
Even in the most extreme cases, is 10 years really necessary?!
Another hackle raising and contentious article from Tanya.
Insufficient exploration of the topic.
1. Its not acceptable to ‘white lie’ about your criminal convictions – fraud does occur and if you’ve ever interviewed candidates who are in charge of payroll, finance, or budgets then you need to be given the truth on a CV – the public’s money is at stake.
2. Employment/visa status – its not acceptable to ‘white lie’ about your ability to work in the UK. Employers can be fined tens of thousands of pounds and the defence – ‘the employee did a little white lie’ won’t cut it with the Immigration Office.
3. Qualifications – its not acceptable to lie about qualifications. If you’ve ever interviewed a welder who’s had to work at height with an unqualified welder who lied about this qualifications and undid his qualified colleague’s safety harness so he, the unqualified worker, could get better purchase then you’ll understand. Lives are at stake.
4. If you’ve worked for intelligence agencies, defence, nuclear, power, transport/national infrastructure companies you’ll know all about terrorism and the need to check employees haven’t told lies about who they’ve worked for and where they’ve worked.
5. If you’ve ever wasted hours interviewing candidates who’ve told ‘white lies’ on their CV and denied other more able candidate’s a chance at interview then you’d see things differently.
Is the point hitting home?
It took a while but I finally realised…. I did not have to put on my CV “Won’t work in a defence-related position”. I could simply not apply for such jobs. Employers I did apply to did not need that info.
That’s wonderful, in exactly the same manner the Great British general public has agreed waive any notion of corporate responsibility or negligence on the part of the employer.
Best not tell Mr Alan Sugar… he failed to achieve anything at school other than a few mediocre grades at O level before becoming a BarrowBoy, failed to make the grade for College and University, and yet in 2003 was given an Honorary Doctorate by Brunel University.
In 2012, Forbes Magazine produced an article, written by a 22 year old University Student which reported “Should all Social Media Managers be under 25?”.
Some great comments here – thanks everyone!
I’m really interested in two questions:
1) what % of students and graduates realise that it’s illegal to lie on a job application (let alone that it could mean jail)
2) whose responsibility is it to inform them about this?
Someone said ‘the media’ yesterday, which worries me a bit! I agree the media can help spread the word, but I don’t think it’s ultimately their responsibility. What are schools, colleges and universities telling young people? Is this subject even being raised?
Employers could easily solve this issue by phoning the school office at your university and requiring references from your past two or three jobs.
I had an interview today. I was kindly informed that they had 80 applications and I was one of 5 interviewed for 1 job.
My CV contains a number of lies. Sure this is a crime but at the same time the unemployed are treated like criminals so I feel I have to do anything and everything to become employed. Principles can make fools of you….
Most large companies run background checks on all employees as they are onboard, mainly to prevent legal issues with employing someone (international students etc) illegally. You will get caught our fairly quick, it happened to me!
The process has been outsourced everywhere I interned and when I started work full time. Typically it seems to be contracted to a background checking company fairly soon after accepting an offer, who they get in touch. Thought the online application was extensive?… the forms I had to fill in took hours, probing every aspect of your life.
– The company checked our passport, which required a trip to their office in london.
– Literally *everything* listen on my CV was scrutinised by the company, even trivial things – I was asked to provide a copy of my PADI diving certificate!
– Copies of Secondary and college records were requested from the schools.
Turns out I had accidentally listed a grade wrong. I had to go through an arbitration process with HR and for a long time I worried that the offer was being withdrawn. Thankfully, they didn’t – but it stayed on my record and my line manager was informed etc… not a great first impression.
As popular schemes have so many secondary candidates in reserve, it’s much less risky for them to withdraw the offer and take on someone else with a clean record (if they lied about a grade.. what else are they hiding?)
I think this was the company involved in two of the checks
http://www.lexisnexis.com/backgroundchecks/
Telling porkies might get you an interview and offer, but it will all come crashing down once they screen you (and they will…)
I’m going to lie about my experience by including a role on my CV that I never had. The downside is I will list it as being a few years ago (aka not recent experience), so I’m not sure if it will be worth anything. Still, it fills a gap.
I have had an honest cv since leaving school to, well, reading this article. My college quals were never enough for employers, and I could only land short term agency work, which I am now informed looks worse than an empty cv. Apprenticeships were gone by the time I was the right age, and they returned when I was too old. I never managed to get that magical ‘2 years commercial experience’ in anything despite being qualified to the hilt.
They say teachers are in short supply, hole in the IT market, we need cyber officers, asbestos testers… all great news, till you try to get qualified for them. So after 10 years in college, I need to do ANOTHER 8 to 10 years college, multiple qualifications, and for what, to come out 60 grand in debt and getting a job when i’m 55 ? – I don’t have that time luxury any more, and training is far too long winded. And the Job Centre won’t help fund retraining unless there’s a guaranteed job waiting at the end.
Am I going to lie on my cv now in my 40’s ? yes, because I can’t even get to interview stage without doing so or reverting to bloody agencies. The Job Centre will say you can, but I have almost 30 years of history that proves different; and employers always want 10x more skill that you even have. One skill used to mean “specialist” now you need to be 10 specialists in one person to even stand a chance as they cut the workforce numbers.
I have bills and need to live just like everyone else. I don’t care what job I get now, something basic and unimportant though; my lofty goals left when I lost my parents. There is no more safety net for me when I fall, and eating breakfast at her majesty’s pleasure with a roof over my head, is better than steeling food off the cat and living in a cardboard box under a bridge. Lying is seemingly the only way to get off the bottom rung these days; so I guess i’ll give that a go… I feel i’ve tried pretty much everything else truthfully and ‘by the book’, this is where it gets you. the girl at school who lied on her cv, with no interest or formal qualifications in computers, has had a long and well paid career as an IT consultant; It sickens me.
When you are at the point of contemplating suicide through failure… swimming in debt for all your efforts, there’s not much further to fall till you hit the ground… ‘crunch’. They can do their worst, be doing me a favour.
In my opinion, if any person in the UK ACCIDENTALLY incorrectly declared grades, they should ONLY be punished with a small fine and it should NOT attract a prison sentence. There are much worse crimes in life. Just my opinion x
I see no harm in lying about your educational qualifications or work history. If you are desperate to put a roof over your head and a bite in your mouth you would resort to anything, lying included. If you havent got the experience or know how on paper thats not to say you couldnt do the job even if techincally speaking you never did a similar kind of job before. To quote a metaphor it is possible to take to something like a duck to water. I would lie to get a job. It wouldnt bother me one bit. Depending on how serious it is you could get away with it pretty easily. I know I could
How high is the likelihood of them ever finding out? I am trying to apply for a job, but I struggled extremely hard in university. Getting a degree in the first place was incredibly exhausting, but they won’t even read my story because they already chuck it aside without reading. Which is why I’ve been thinking about adding ‘2:1’, while I’ve got a 2:2 (the keys are right next to each other on the keyboard.. Could be a typo!).
Also, I can always explain later: ‘I just wanted to get noticed’, and explain why I deserve a chance, when I get through the first few rounds and they ask why I lied. I’m sure they’ll understand, as the field is a hard one to get in and I do have a lot to offer them! For now, I just never mention my grade, as I don’t think it’s important. But I’m seriously considering doing this… I don’t like lying but I do value justice. Someone with learning difficulties deserves an equal chance to someone who just got high grades because they were smart.