New employee is a fake, where to go from here?

[londonnotlangdon]

It's a large organisation and I just had to send off her paperwork, passport, things like that

She was given the job after her second interview last week.

However, she has emailed me these documents (fine), and her birth certificate says born in September 2002?

That makes her 19?

This is a problem because, for example, her CV says she was an Executive Assistant to a Director in 2018? When she would've been in school?!

I've asked HR, who haven't replied properly, I've asked them to call. But someone replied to my email of concern with 'so you don't want this new me ever of staff? Why not?'

What can actually be done about this?

@Alightjacket -

'"Memories with my girls' is exactly what a group of school girlfriends would post about a photo of them together."

Well It's 100% not what my group of girlfriends would post about our school days pics.

It sounds ridiculously twee and feigned.

Ours would be more
"LOL I can't believe I wore that bright pink jumper! Well at least you weren't wearing a bit of string round your wrist to look like Morten Harkett..."

Or something similarly irreverent

It sounds far too formal for real mates.

Agree with @TheSillyMastiff - tread carefully as it doesn't look like HR are backing you up at moment and if you end up having to work with her as her direct LM you don't want it to be really strained.

Tbh HR people generally don’t understand too much of equality law and get wrong what they do know in my experience.

I've seen your update that she's withdrawn OP but wanted to comment on the bizarre argument by your HR dept.

Discovering that someone has misrepresented their previous experience (because that's clearly what she did) isn't "age discrimination", it's catching someone out when they've misrepresented their previous experience. In some lines of work, that's instant dismissal.

Pointing out that someone couldn't possibly have been a company PA at age 13 is merely exmaining their CV and discovering a falsehood.

That HR dept don't sound like they know their arses from their elbows.

Totally agree with this. We've had a couple of really unfortunate appointments in our team and they end up not pulling their weight, it puts huge strain on everyone else, and it took ages to go through processes to get rid of them.

Exactly my experience and my point, too!

It really isn't 🤣

Yup truly grim

There was another example of a very pretty intern type voluntary person who got her feet under the table.

Another clinician warned the bosses how concerned she was about her behaviour on day 3 exceedingly and worryingly bad.

She was ignored.... It did not end well.. Senior persons concerns were bang on, they were ignored. Cost the organisation hideous amount of money and very senior people left because of her... She caused that many issues.

Im so glad I no longer work there!

Well I hope you gave him the job 😉

We've had a couple of really unfortunate appointments in our team and they end up not pulling their weight, it puts huge strain on everyone else, and it took ages to go through processes to get rid of them

You don't have a probation period for new hires?

Or you don't have line managers capable of managing performance and raising issues in a timely manner?

Qualified HR professionals do know equality law and have at least annual refreshers. We need to know the latest case law and maintain our CPD. I have certainly corrected employment lawyers in the past.

Part of the problem is HR are ask to resolve an issue once the discrimination has occurred, so you are often looking for creative ways to resolve the situation.

I am sure this is commonplace in many places of work. I work in the public sector and we are very much bound by process and legislation. I don’t know why you think that line managers wouldn’t see this material.
Perhaps this is still more common than I think, but I'm deep into an information security audit and the auditor is showing a great deal of interest in how PII is handled during recruitment. I thought the controls we had in place were good, but they need to go to another level to come up to scratch. And we don't take RTW documentation before interview. The candidate supplies it in a sealed envelope or via an encrypted portal online and only HR review it.

Whats the point of it being provided in a sealed envelope? Presumably they aren't going to leave their passport or whatever for a prolonged time with a perspective employer- just hand it over to the relevant person or have it photocopied or whatever. Sounds like someone creating a job by coming up with ridiculous and unnecessary security measures. How many breaches had your employer had prior to audit of people's documents being breached?

I think in the public and third sectors HR are often a smallish team and are there to advise hiring managers when needed.

Everywhere is different but I'm used to Pre-employment checks including documentation checks for RTW & DBS being done by dedicated admin staff who have been specifically trained.

Glad the problem has disappeared OP. I started reading this thread in the morning then had to take a flight, and didn't get a chance to comment until now.

All of those saying the timeline couldn't possibly be true, well mine is somewhat similar.

I got into university at 15 and by 18 I was regularly working in the top 5 companies worldwide in my industry. It's rare but it happens. At that age I had many, many people say to me that I could pass for being 25/30 years old, simply because I had worked in those circles since a very young age and I looked and behaved just like my older colleagues. I skipped teen slang entirely, but could give eloquent public presentations at 16/17 and no one would have guessed my age from how I spoke. Mind you, the gap shrinks over time and I've been stuck at 'you look 30' for almost a decade now

Nothing on my CV is a lie although I guess it could look like one. I don't live in the UK right now and where I am, you have to attach copies of your qualifications with any job application, so they've always checked out. It's a niche industry and people can easily verify whether what I say is true, I've never had an issue with that.

That said, I was also in OP's camp throughout the thread because this girl does seem to have blatantly lied - mainly based on how her references do not seem genuine (emails and addresses not matching, etc). There are more con artists than 'prodigies' (for lack of a less cringy word) out there. This person sounds more like the former based on her CV alone.

The issue is not how she seemed, but the fact that her birth certificate and passport show her to be 19.

@garlicandsapphires - great user name - love that book!

OFGS, she's not more likely to be a useless liar because of her age, she's likely to be a useless liar because she clearly IS A LIAR and is pretty useless at even that!

She sent the documents to the company she wanted to be employed by. Not every company has an HR department, and there is no rigid rule of thumb by which HR departments work. A complaint based on the fact that the person she sent the documents to looked at them would never get past first base.

@yellowsuninthesky

Why is she any more likely to be a useless liar than anyone else, because she's 19?

Don't be silly. Nobody thinks she's more likely to be a liar because she's 19.

They think she's more likely to be a liar because she's claimed to have had a professional admin roles at well known organisations from the age of thirteen (!) without breaks.

From my experience I'd never underestimate the lengths people go to get a job. We have a drugs test before confirming employment, all very clear from the outset

and the legal grounds for requiring such a test are what? Unless you are airline pilots or in some other safety critical role, I cannot see how this can possibly be lawful.

I'm sure that good HR professionals do all this. The problem is that all too many don't. As for maintaining CPD, it's all too easy IME to do that whilst sleeping through the CPD sessions or simply clocking in and then skiving off.

The post I was replying to was actually in another context. Before you call people silly, you should read things properly.

I'm sure that good HR professionals do all this. The problem is that all too many don't. As for maintaining CPD, it's all too easy IME to do that whilst sleeping through the CPD sessions or simply clocking in and then skiving off

I don't know about HR, but for library/knowledge management roles and legal roles, you have to reflect on your CPD and how it has helped you in your role (or not). However, I don't suppose it necessarily means that you can't turn off your camera during a webinar and do something else