CV cheats

Is it right to prosecute someone for lying on their CV? Yes, argues Helena Frith Powell

Prosecuting someone for lying on their CV is fair enough. After all it is fraud. And taken to its most extreme level, lying about your qualifications could be downright dangerous. Imagine saying you could fly a plane when you can’t.

Why do people assume that because it is not, for example, stealing or harming anyone that lying on a CV is not wrong?

I cannot understand why people who are otherwise morally sound think that it can be justified. They argue that ‘well I should have got an A in maths’ or ‘I was in the job for a year in spirit’.

I used to work as a headhunter in the media business. Most of the roles we hunted for were very senior. I even headhunted Piers Morgan for one, he was still at The Mirror at the time, and told me he was “perfectly happy”.

I remember one candidate we offered a job to was found to have a ‘discrepancy’ on his CV. The package he was about to land was worth almost half a million pounds plus share options. The job went to someone else and we never dealt with the candidate again. I think he’s still in the job he was about to leave before we checked up on his CV. Admittedly it was quite a big lie; he said he had a masters degree when he didn’t. Stupid and unnecessary and it cost him his career.

The reason headhunters are so harsh on this, and the reason it should be taken extremely seriously, is that lying on you CV is indicative of the barriers you are prepared to break to get what you want.  It is a reflection of your character, or lack of it. In recruitment, as in life, you need to be able to trust people and that trust is betrayed by any lie, however seemingly insignificant it is. A CV is your personal assertion as to what you have achieved and who you are. To lie on it is criminal, as well as extremely poor form.