THE WORKPLACE : Jobs, lies and CVs: How far?
International Herald Tribune - April 6, 2005

The current issue of Cleo, a glossy women's monthly magazine published here, includes a cover article titled "Lying on your CV: How far should you go?"

The article, which advises readers on how they can fake details of a résumé without getting caught, starts with this sentence: "Telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is rarely the best plan of attack when it comes to applying for a new job."

The magazine proposes such tricks as embellishing job titles, inventing hobbies, lowering one's age and listing achievements of a trusted co-worker with his or her consent so that you can say you "co-developed" a project.

For those who think that these tactics might open some doors with future employers, meet John Baxter, the co-founder of Quest Research, a company that specializes in screening employees for multinational companies.

Baxter is a former Hong Kong police officer who spent much of his previous career raiding gambling dens and crouching on rooftops to keep tabs on drug dealers. These days his work is more mundane, but it's worth describing to understand what some companies are doing to vet job applicants.

Baxter's company is given the résumés of job applicants and then contacts universities and former employers and generally checks the accuracy of the applicants' résumés.

"I would say 10 percent to 15 percent have issues that require attention," Baxter said in a recent interview in his Hong Kong office.

Sometimes there are discrepancies on salaries, a previous position is exaggerated or an applicant omits mention of previous litigation or bankruptcy.

Baxter said 3 percent to 4 percent had "serious discrepancies" like falsely reporting university attendance.

Background checks are common in the United States, where the screening industry greatly expanded in the 1990s, but the work is different in Asia, Baxter said.

In the United States, and to a lesser extent in Europe, a vast amount of data is stored electronically, from diplomas to credit assessments. The vulnerability of this system was recently underscored when ChoicePoint, Lexis/Nexis and other database companies disclosed that the personal data of tens of thousands of people had been stolen.

In Asia, Baxter's company sends faxes to universities to verify diplomas. Other verification is done by telephone.

No one knows how many fake degrees are floating around, but in recent years there have been signs that the practice of counterfeiting has spread from such products as Gucci bags and DVDs to the educational field.

In 2000, the Chinese government revealed that the number of people saying they held degrees in the national census was 600,000 higher than the number of diplomas that had been legally awarded.

Two years later, the police in Shanghai seized 100,000 bogus licenses and diplomas during a raid on counterfeiters.

The Chinese authorities have since cracked down in this area, setting up centers to verify college diplomas. But in the meantime, the Internet has made it easier to obtain falsified degrees.

Printing a fake high school or university diploma is easy, according to www.fake diplomas.com, which advertises itself as "the best portal for online fake diplomas and degrees." I didn't try downloading one myself, but the site says a Harvard degree costs $39 (for Europeans, €45, or about $50).

Baxter sees a correlation between fast-growing economies and the potential for fraud.

"Especially in hot job markets, it's very tempting to fraudulently claim qualifications," he said.

Since starting up in 2000, Quest Research has aggressively expanded its operations in India, the region's other economic hot spot.

As for Cleo's cover article, which advises readers that "a little deception may help your application get through the culling stage and win you an interview," maybe we shouldn't take such recommendations too seriously. The same issue of Cleo includes a "test yourself" feature titled "Is he a gem or a jerk? Is the man in your life a complete and utter creep?"