Six people who were caught lying on their resumes
Everybody knows that you should not lie on your resume, but it happens, actually, it happens a lot. Why do people do it? Well, to get work! (Or to inflate their own ego!!!) For the record, I am against lying on resumes, but I think there is something to be said about companies requiring degrees for certain roles when clearly a candidate can do the gig without it. I would LOVE to hear my readers comments on this issue.
Okay, here is some food for thought…
Ronald Zarrella, Bausch & Lomb, CEO
Misdemeanor: Zarrella falsely claimed an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He attended the program from 1972-76, but never earned his MBA. His claim was never checked by his prior employers.
Punishment: He was forced to forfeit $1.1 million dollars from a bonus that could’ve potentially reached $1.65 million. Zarrella remained employed with Bausch & Lomb, who said he brought too much value to the company and it shareholders to fire him completely.
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George O’Leary, ex-Notre Dame Football Coach
Misdemeanor: In 2001, O’Leary divulged his lies about his academic and athletic backgrounds. He claimed to have a master’s degree in education from New York University and to have played college football and earned three letters while doing so. Contrarily, O’Leary was a student at NYU but did not earn a degree, and while he played football, he never earned a letter, let alone played in a game.
Punishment: Five days after he was hired, O’Leary resigned. “Many years ago, as a young married father, I sought to pursue my dream as a football coach,” he said in a statement. “In seeking employment, I prepared a résumé that contained inaccuracies regarding my completion of course work for a master’s degree and also my level of participation in football at my alma mater. These misstatements were never stricken from my résumé or biographical sketch in later years.”
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Marilee Jones, Admissions Dean for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Misdemeanor: Jones fudged her credentials, claiming to be a “scientist with degrees in biology from Rennselaar Polytechnic Institute and the Albany Medical College,” and to have her doctorate. Jones said in a statement she “did not have the courage to correct my résumé when I applied for my current job or at any time since.”
Punishment: Jones resigned in April 2007 after officials learned of her fabrications. MIT’s dean for undergraduate education said MIT couldn’t “tolerate this kind of behavior.”
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Kenneth Lonchar, CFO of Veritas software
Misdemeanor: Lonchar fabricated his education, saying he earned an accounting degree from Arizona State University and was a Stanford MBA graduate — in reality, all he had was an undergraduate degree from Idaho State University.
Punishment: Lonchar resigned and Veritas stock investors responded — the company’s stock price fell about 16 percent.
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Jeff Papows, CEO of Lotus Corporation
Misdemeanor: In 1999, The Wall Street Journal discovered Papows exaggerated his military record (he was a lieutenant not a captain), feigned his education (he doesn’t have a Ph.D. from Pepperdine University) and claimed he was an orphan (his parents are alive and well).
Punishment: Papows resigned after his exaggerations were exposed at the same time as a sexual discrimination allegation from a former Lotus employee against him. Papows is now the chairman and CEO of Maptuit Corporation.
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Dave Edmondson, CEO of RadioShack
Misdemeanor: Edmondson falsified his résumé by claiming to have a degree in psychology from Pacific Coast Baptist College in California (though the school doesn’t offer a psychology program), along with a degree in theology from the same unaccredited college.
Punishment: Like the others, Edmondson admitted his false claims and resigned.
Want more? READ: Infamous Resume Lies
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Comments
These people are CEO’s, CFO’s or at least in the top position in their company.
What about the regular positions that applicants gloss over the facts on their resumes.
Too many times I’ve seen resumes that claim a great skill set but when the applicant is hired they can’t do the work or have no idea what to do.
What do you do about these people lying or when it seems that everyone that has applied is lying, how do you select an applicant?
In this case I naively thought that once some one reached this level of stature of employment and pay there was some type of honesty engrained in their nature to forfeit the notion of lying on a resume.
Lying on your resume isn’t just for executives anymore. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/nyregion/11mayor.html
It never has occurred to me to lie on my resume. Naively, though I’ve done a fair bit of hiring, it never occurred to me until recent years that a significant portion of the hundreds of resumes I looked at over the years might be falsified.
To me, the resume never was a make-or-break thing anyhow. It just verified the “floor,” i.e., the minimum requirements to get you an interview. To be considered for a position, you needed a degree and a couple years of relevant experience. The actual hiring decision came down to work samples, results of some light testing, and one or two rounds of interviews.
At the executive level, I would think padding the resume would carry an unacceptably high risk of getting caught, since much of what’s on it would be more easily verifiable than for some mid-level person. I understand we want executives to be risk-takers, but sheesh, is honesty too much to expect?
Are these executives so insecure about what they’ve accomplished that they don’t think it’s enough? Apparently so.
Great Post! I had heard of Marilee Jones but none of the others…wow…can you imagine the look on their faces when they realized they were caught…but can you really believe it took so long to figure them out…
Thanks….
[...] I thought my initial post was eye-opening. I guess this kind of thing is more prevalent than one would realize, [...]
These people made it very far without the authentic credentials it would have taken for them to get the job, and having made it so far, one would assume that they did just fine without those pricey, impressive degrees. So maybe the question is not “how can we make sure that people can’t get away with such deception”, but should be “how can we make sure we aren’t missing out on great and talented people who don’t have the impressive resume points we seek out”.
It’s amazing the amount of outrage that’s expressed when these people are caught lying about their credentials. Most people just buy into the “I need a degree to get paid” idea and beg and borrow to get a degree.
The fact is that Jim made a good point when he said that it’s ludicrous for these companies to require basic and advanced degrees for jobs that obviously don’t require it. No one, of course, is outraged about this. In fact, the majority of jobs (paying a decent salary) require an undergrad degree of some kind (associates’, batchelors’)
Our parents and grandparents were working at these same jobs, for the most part, and with an high school education as their major educational achievement.
I believe that there are two reasons why this situation has become the norm. One, corporations can minimize the amount of applicants for various positions by simply raising the degree requirements (see Google for an example). Two, because, somehow we’ve made a degree equal with education. There are many people graduating with degrees who don’t know their heads from a hole in the ground. However, they borrowed, begged or were given enough money to buy a degree and so are rewarded with better pay and perks.
I do not have a degree and, I’m not sure if I’ll ever get one. I am sick of the lousy time trap designed to keep people out of the workforce and in debt. If corporations were really concerned about the education level of their applicants and employees, they would take education out of the hands of tenured, degree-laden educrats and train people for the work they require.
Interesting. Would they have gotten this far without their fake CVs?