Oh, what a tangled résumé ... Job application lies can be career wreckers, so why so common?

Feb, 26, 2006
BINYAMIN APPELBAUM, The Charlotte Observer

People who write résumés are trying to market themselves. So like businesses advertising products, perhaps it's not surprising that they sometimes polish the truth.

Companies that perform background checks on job seekers say perhaps 20 percent either make a false claim on their applications, or neglect to mention problems.

According to InfoLink Screening Services, which checks hundreds of thousands of applications each year, fully 14 percent list an educational degree they don't hold.

That's a lot of company for Dave Edmondson, the former chief executive of Radio Shack, who left the Fort Worth retailer last week after conceding he had lied about his education on his résumé. Edmondson's exposure by a newspaper was a public embarrassment. But lies by lower-level employees also matter.

Companies are concerned that a person who lies on an application will lie on the job to the detriment of the business. People caught lying are seldom hired. If the lie is caught later, they often are fired. So why are so many people deciding not to tell the truth?

Experts say holding the proper degree has become a base-line requirement for a growing proportion of well-paid jobs. Applicants without degrees may think lying is the only way to get hired. From that perspective, telling the truth makes about as much sense as simply not applying.

A tight market for job seekers can also encourage people to doctor their credentials, said Barry Nadell, president of California-based InfoLink. "When employers are begging people to come to work, individuals don't need to falsify information as much," he said.

Also, there's a lot of room for lies to slip through. A 2004 survey of 135 Charlotte-area firms by The Employers Association, which consults on human resources, found 77 percent did a criminal background check, but only 54 percent checked educational credentials.

Lying is more common in applications for lower-level jobs, experts say. Companies tend to be more careful when hiring senior executives, discouraging attempted lies. And the pool of applicants is limited to people who have probably survived previous scrutiny.

Doug Anderson, president of Anderson & Associates, a Charlotte firm paid by companies to find senior executives, said that in 20 years of vetting résumés he had found only about a dozen outright lies. In one case, a company had already offered an applicant "a major job, a $300,000 (a year) position," Anderson said. When a background check showed a listed degree was imaginary, the offer was pulled.

"When it happens, it's over," Anderson said.

But tighter scrutiny at higher levels doesn't necessarily protect a company's boardroom. Companies often hire from within. People who lied on job applications when they joined a company can find themselves unable to change their story.

"Some executives ensnare themselves in a web of deceit early in their careers," said Peter Felix, president of the Association of Executive Search Consultants. They "do not realize that it could come back to trip them up at a time when they have much more to lose."

Edmondson, promoted to CEO from within Radio Shack, finally reached a position where his credentials became a matter of public interest. A reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram checked with his avowed alma mater, a small bible college, and learned he had lied. When he was confronted, Edmondson told the paper, "If I were going to make stuff up, I probably would have found something a little more impressive to make up."

That was certainly the case with Bill Simms, a senior executive with TransAmerica Life who became an important civic leader in Charlotte in the mid-1990s. In 1997, he was forced to resign for fabricating parts of his background. His boldest lie? He said he had won an Olympic gold medal in 1968.

Local CEOs

The CEOs of the eight Fortune 500 companies based in the Charlotte area seem to be a truthful bunch when it comes to degrees. The Observer checked their listed degrees with their alma maters last week. Because they generally graduated a long time ago, some records were not immediately available. Those that were? So far, so good.