1- Script of Recording

BBC News Online: Business
Saturday, 15 January, 2000, 17:53 GMT

CV LIARS FACE COMPUTER CHECKS

It is a temptation thousands succumb to in the competitive battle to secure a dream job. Whether it involves notching a degree up a grade or turning time spent loafing into an action-packed period of personal development, company bosses say lying on curricula vitae is increasingly common among job hunters. But now bogus candidates are to be exposed by a computer vetting system available to employers.

Potential employees boasting of non-existent qualifications or experience can now be checked out by employers - who can refer their CVs to a Candidate Verifier system. Credentials can be checked simply by contacting a telephone call centre where a database stores lists of academic qualifications, past employment and membership of professional bodies. The facility is being marketed to companies in the wake of a survey which showed 71% of bosses had encountered serious lying on CVs.

Experian - the information company which did the research and is helping to launch the new facility - said nearly one in four bosses had found people lying about previous experience. Lies about higher educational qualifications were the next most common followed by salary and then secondary qualifications such as A levels and GCSEs. The average cost of recruiting an employee was found to be £3,000.

A spokesman for Experian said there had been thousands of examples of people lying to get jobs. These included a deputy headteacher who falsely claimed to have a degree, a doctor who was barely educated as a lab technician, and a man who stole £4m from two banks to whom he supplied false references. "The problem of misrepresentation on CVs, and particularly in the area of educational qualifications raises very important issues for employers," said Richard Fiddis, chief operating officer at Experian. "Most employers find the cost of checking qualifications prohibitive, yet the implication of employing unsuitable people can be huge, particularly in cases such as teachers, doctors or care workers. At the moment, the door of employment is open to unscrupulous job applicants and this situation makes a mockery of educational qualifications along with the ethic of hard work at school and university."

The system, provided with the help of the Higher Education Statistic Agency, relies on the consent of applicants who are provided with copies of data supplied to employers. The cost of checking out potential employees varies but is "normally a matter of a few pounds", an Experian spokesman said.

2- Summary

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Most Common Mistakes :

Most students had no difficulty understanding the recording. However, major blunders were to be found. To name but a few :

• The computer vetting system, the telephone call center, the verifier system
• "bosses had encountered" was misheard as "accounted".
• A levels and GCSEs went unnoticed (check the basics on the British school system in past AN 111 material).
• The rephrasing of such words as :qualifications (credentials, degrees, competence, abilities, etc.) candidates (applicants, job seekers, job hunters), lie (falsehood, misrepresentation)
• The figures (one in four, 71%, £3, 000) were often inaccurately quoted.
• NB : Sum up in your own words. Direct quotation of the text will be counted against you really means what it says. Understanding is half the job. You are also expected to rephrase what you grasped in your own words.

Suggested summary

Sum up the recording in no more than 150 words. NB : Sum up in your own words. Direct quotation of the text will be counted against you

The January 15, 2002 BBC News Online Article entitled CV Liars face computer checks raises the thorny issue of misrepresentation on CVs. An information company called Experian investigated this trend by carrying out a survey which underscored that 71% of bosses have come across lies on CVs, that is to say one in four employers. They found out that lying on CVs covers the whole gamut of white lies on school grades, altered or made up academic qualifications and increased salaries. The article quotes examples of grave misconducts in such sensitive areas of recruitment as education, health services and social work. It further underlines that lying runs counter to (undermines) the collective work ethic. It ends up mentioning that the new Experian database is marketed to help bosses check out on future applicants at a very reasonable price -a few pounds- compared to the £3,000 paid for any standard recruitment.

3- Opinion Question

Opinion question (no more than 300 words) : Lying on CVs "makes a mockery of educational qualifications along with the ethic of hard work at school and university." Do you approve of this statement. Justify your answer with appropriate examples.

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Most Common Mistakes :

1. Most opinion questions were unnecessarily virtuous, given that students' statements were not to be pitted against personal CVs and actual behaviors. At this stage of students' careers, there was no point in pledging their honor that they would never ..., etc.
2. Virtue did not make up for the lack of a basic analysis of the statement. It had two separate parts. Most papers neglected the need to explain what both meant in the English-speaking context.
3. Many students thought they just had to either defend or blame the right to lie. They overlooked the need to analyse the statement. No matter what students chose to defend, the right to lie or the rejection of lying on CVs, they had to tie up their choice to an assessment of "educational qualifications" and of "the ethic of hard work".

Tips along these lines

1. Starting with qualifications, one has to notice that both in the US and GB academic qualifications are not centralised and nation-based but locally granted by local universities. This system based on devolution has its clear advantages naturally. But, it may allow for greater difficulties to weed out unscrupulous applicants. The authenticity of grades is more difficult to manipulate in a nation-based, centralised system which demands certification of grades by an independent body (usually certified civil servants in Town Halls).
2. This next leads to the issue of the value granted to degrees in our post-industrial societies. The recording implicitly shows how dependent we have grown on academic qualifications. The days of the self-made men/women are over in that professionals today are predominantly college-trained. Degrees are not only the proof that a student has attended classes on an attentive basis. They also guarantee that its recipient has reached the level of attainment which is a prerequisite for most jobs. Naturally, one does not imply that expertise cannot be obtained another way. One merely suggests that an academic qualification provides an objective, neutral and impartial assessment of a person's competence in a given field.
3. Some students bitterly complained that degrees are no guarantee of competence. Fair enough. But one may wonder if the other way round is true too. Some students argued in favor of lying on CVs claiming that if one thinks that one has the abilities guaranteed by the degree, then one may lie since one is equal to the person who is granted the degree. Now, this reasoning is flawed in that nothing warrants that a person without a degree has the same competence as the person who does have a degree. University qualifications are meant to provide an objective, impartial assessment of a person's level of attainment. A person's individual assessment of his/her worth is not good enough.
4. Other students argued that lying on CVs was acceptable insofar as inexperienced job seekers are faced with job offers which clearly spell out hands-on experience as a major selection criterion. Lying is thus felt to be necessary to bypass an impossible first obstacle. Unfortunately, this argument does not hold water either. One may get experience and training through internship periods at a very early age. Naturally students' experience varies greatly but one may venture to say that internship is available to all, no matter what their social and economic background is.
5. Other students also claimed that lying was acceptable inasmuch as they felt it was up to the employer to check, double check and cross examine job seekers. In case the employer should overlook a lie, should an employer fail to screen out a dishonest, unscrupulous job hunter, then it is too bad for the employer. The job seeker may well profit from a boss's foolishness. Well, this line of argument is rotten since the very same job applicant would probably expect his/her boss to be candid and honest about working conditions, salaries, promotion, retirement and social security benefits. If workers and bosses are not expected to conform to the same values of truthfulness, which side is allowed to cheat ? Working in the same company is only possible if it is conceived as a partnership in which both sides share the same code of conduct.
6. ("the mockery of the ethic of hard work") Other students argued that lying on CVs undermined the worth or value of a degree. Some felt that diplomas are a huge investment for students and for the state and that lying makes light of this investment.
7. Most students failed to mention that our academic system of meritocracy is also the backbone of our democracy. Let me explain. The 1789 French Revolution, the 1776 American Constitution tried to abolish the privileges of birth and fortune and replaced the old notion of aristocracy with that of meritocracy. Only the best and brightest, only the outstanding students should be rewarded with degrees, jobs and promotion. So goes the common wisdom. The ethic of hard work means that abilities and effort should be rewarded. No matter who one is, no matter what one's economic, social, ethnic or gender background is, one will be rewarded according to one's abilities. This work ethic can naturally be traced to the old Biblical value of hard work ("thou shalt work in the sweat of thy brow"), and to the Puritan work ethic. Lying on CVs means that one claims the reward of hard work without the pain and suffering pertaining to hard work.