My wife has actually written quite a lot of this post - which is why you'll find her picture in the middle of it. She’s a United States citizen and lived in the US for many years, so she’s more familiar than I am with a particular type of fraud that used to be a peculiarly American – and actually relatively harmless – ‘vanity’ phenomenon, but which is now becoming a global and potentially very harmful problem.
Nearly all small or medium sized businesses screen potential employees themselves because the cost of professional screening is, on the face of it, prohibitively expensive. Actually, the price of professional screening is very reasonable given the potentially enormous costs of employing the ‘wrong’ person, someone whose credentials are not what they appear to be, or somebody who isn’t whom they say they are - but still a lot of people tend to take a look at the quote for professional help, shudder, and then decide to continue to DIY.
Most companies who do DIY personnel screening follow a standard procedure when they vet potential employees. They ask candidates to fill out an application, submit a CV, and provide references and photocopies of their professional credentials. That information is then checked – usually by a member of the personnel department or by managerial staff - against readily available databases with a view to confirming that the applicant is who he or she says that they are, that he or she has worked satisfactorily where he or she says that she has worked, and that he or she is financially stable and does not have a criminal record.
The problem is that most people who are not in the business of checking other people’s credentials don’t look beyond what are apparently obvious truths. If, for example, a candidate presents material that is apparently true in that there really is a record of a person by that name graduating from a particular school, or as having been employed as by a particular company, then they tend to accept that that person is whom they purport to be, and that their qualifications are valid. But should they?
Approximately fifty per cent of people regularly tell ‘porkies’ on their CV. Usually they're small decorative ‘porkies’ - just a tweak of a title here and a soupcon of exagerated responsibility there – nothing so drastic as a downright (and actually fraudulent!) lie. Just icing on the cake, really - that little bit extra that might get them the job they want at the salary they think they deserve.
Sadly, though, there’s been an enormous rise in identity theft over the last several years - and an even more substantial rise in the number of people who are prepared to fake or buy qualifications or manufacture references (lie, in other words!) in order to 'decorate' their CV extravagantly, improve their prospects - or just get a job, full stop.
Fake qualifications aren’t hard to come by – I could get a Doctorate tomorrow on my so called ‘life experience’ – and they can be very inexpensive. Actually they look pretty good as well, because they’re turned out on standard Degree Certificate forms and use important – albeit deliberately misleading - educational ‘buzz’ words.
Would you, for example, know the difference between a Degree awarded by ‘Columbia University’ (which is genuine) and one awarded by ‘The University of Columbia’ (which is actually run out of somebody’s back-kitchen in Kentucky) when both Degree Certificates are, to all practical purposes, identical? Probably not – particularly were I your candidate and could back up my American ‘qualifications’ with a perfectly genuine American Passport and a perfectly genuine 15 year record of working in the US.
If you’re interested in finding out more about fake degrees, and how convincing they can appear to be to a potential employer, you just need to type ‘fake educational qualifications’ into Google. You’ll get http://www.instantdegrees.biz/ right there at the top of the page. Do tour the site. It’s an educational experience. And please do note that the ‘accredited colleges’ referred to in the blurb are perfectly prepared to give their ‘graduates’ a reference... And when you've been there go and have a look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7600651.stm and read that, too. That's pretty educational also.
The fake degree market has changed a lot over the many years since I first became aware of it. It’s much more sophisticated now. Time was, people bought this stuff to stick up on the walls of their ‘dens’ to impress their friends (who likely knew – or at least suspected – that they were fake anyway), and who never intended to use them in any practical way. Actually, they were just another ‘vanity’ object that no one took very seriously – just like the ‘vanity plates’ you can buy for your car.
That isn’t the case any longer. Fake ‘Degree Certificates’ these days are intended to be used in the market place - and people obviously do use them. Moreover, they often get away with it because the people who are in the business of providing those Certificates make them more convincing and offer better back-up for the people who buy them all the time. And you can't always rely on a nosy hack to dig out the truth about them and report it all on 5 Live.
Nearly all small or medium sized businesses screen potential employees themselves because the cost of professional screening is, on the face of it, prohibitively expensive. Actually, the price of professional screening is very reasonable given the potentially enormous costs of employing the ‘wrong’ person, someone whose credentials are not what they appear to be, or somebody who isn’t whom they say they are - but still a lot of people tend to take a look at the quote for professional help, shudder, and then decide to continue to DIY.
Most companies who do DIY personnel screening follow a standard procedure when they vet potential employees. They ask candidates to fill out an application, submit a CV, and provide references and photocopies of their professional credentials. That information is then checked – usually by a member of the personnel department or by managerial staff - against readily available databases with a view to confirming that the applicant is who he or she says that they are, that he or she has worked satisfactorily where he or she says that she has worked, and that he or she is financially stable and does not have a criminal record.
The problem is that most people who are not in the business of checking other people’s credentials don’t look beyond what are apparently obvious truths. If, for example, a candidate presents material that is apparently true in that there really is a record of a person by that name graduating from a particular school, or as having been employed as by a particular company, then they tend to accept that that person is whom they purport to be, and that their qualifications are valid. But should they?
Approximately fifty per cent of people regularly tell ‘porkies’ on their CV. Usually they're small decorative ‘porkies’ - just a tweak of a title here and a soupcon of exagerated responsibility there – nothing so drastic as a downright (and actually fraudulent!) lie. Just icing on the cake, really - that little bit extra that might get them the job they want at the salary they think they deserve.
Sadly, though, there’s been an enormous rise in identity theft over the last several years - and an even more substantial rise in the number of people who are prepared to fake or buy qualifications or manufacture references (lie, in other words!) in order to 'decorate' their CV extravagantly, improve their prospects - or just get a job, full stop.
Fake qualifications aren’t hard to come by – I could get a Doctorate tomorrow on my so called ‘life experience’ – and they can be very inexpensive. Actually they look pretty good as well, because they’re turned out on standard Degree Certificate forms and use important – albeit deliberately misleading - educational ‘buzz’ words.Would you, for example, know the difference between a Degree awarded by ‘Columbia University’ (which is genuine) and one awarded by ‘The University of Columbia’ (which is actually run out of somebody’s back-kitchen in Kentucky) when both Degree Certificates are, to all practical purposes, identical? Probably not – particularly were I your candidate and could back up my American ‘qualifications’ with a perfectly genuine American Passport and a perfectly genuine 15 year record of working in the US.
If you’re interested in finding out more about fake degrees, and how convincing they can appear to be to a potential employer, you just need to type ‘fake educational qualifications’ into Google. You’ll get http://www.instantdegrees.biz/ right there at the top of the page. Do tour the site. It’s an educational experience. And please do note that the ‘accredited colleges’ referred to in the blurb are perfectly prepared to give their ‘graduates’ a reference... And when you've been there go and have a look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7600651.stm and read that, too. That's pretty educational also.
The fake degree market has changed a lot over the many years since I first became aware of it. It’s much more sophisticated now. Time was, people bought this stuff to stick up on the walls of their ‘dens’ to impress their friends (who likely knew – or at least suspected – that they were fake anyway), and who never intended to use them in any practical way. Actually, they were just another ‘vanity’ object that no one took very seriously – just like the ‘vanity plates’ you can buy for your car.
That isn’t the case any longer. Fake ‘Degree Certificates’ these days are intended to be used in the market place - and people obviously do use them. Moreover, they often get away with it because the people who are in the business of providing those Certificates make them more convincing and offer better back-up for the people who buy them all the time. And you can't always rely on a nosy hack to dig out the truth about them and report it all on 5 Live.
Fake degrees apart, don’t forget that candidates can present documentation and references that paint a perfect picture of the wrong person - or disguise the fact that they’ve spent the last five years as a guest of Her Majesty.It isn’t difficult to steal someone else’s identity – ask any one of the thousands of people who have lost theirs lately - or to get around uncomfortable facts about one’s past history. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 allows people convicted of many criminal offences to legally avoid disclosing those convictions once they are ‘spent’ and enough time has elapsed.
Neither is it too difficult – or even that risky – to manufacture a reference. All you need is access to a computer (to run off the letter-head) and a telephone. It's nice, of course, to have somebody who is prepared to answer the telephone as XYZ Company and swear that you are actually a model employee who worked has there for 10 years but is now (sadly, and to the great distress of the management) having to relocate for family reasons, but it's not vital. In a pinch you can do it yourself. An amazing number of people, given a telephone number that is apparently answered correctly, never bother to check whether it’s actually listed to a company or not. They accept what is – apparently – an obvious truth.
The fact that someone has been silly or desperate enough to buy a piece of paper, assume a false identity, manufacture a reference, or try to bury a criminal conviction in order to get a job doesn’t automatically mean that that person intends to steal from or defraud a potential employer. But you do have to aware that you might be a target for people who are neither silly nor desperate, but might want something you’ve got – like saleable information.
Fraud and theft by employees is always a potential problem for every business, but never more so than during times of economic hardship (which means sometimes) or when financial or other information is at a premium (which means always). If you DIY your personnel screening be sure to check identities and addresses, credentials, credit and criminal records and work histories very, very carefully. Mistakes can be expensive.
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