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?

Well, id suspect that she is a british girl using somebody else's identity.

In ireland your pps number has to match your name and date of birth or the computer says no, so to speak. Will her money go in to an account that has her name, or has she just provided the iban?
In my work, i send instructions to make payments sometimes and our payroll tells me they must have the correct pps to match the name.

I dont know if this is just my ott company, but basically, harder these days to reinvent yourself with a new name because you need a new national insurance number that matches it.

Did she give you q national ins number?

If she worked for big companies that went under, how do you check the references if the companies don’t exist? My DD was working at 16 for a big national company (weekend/after school) but the company is now no longer in existence, so getting references proves difficult/impossible.

It's probably a typo on her birth certificate and she was born in 1992.

Stranger things have happened - my friend born in 1983 discovered her passport mistakenly had 1953 as her birth date. She didn't spot it until she was abroad! So had passed through all the security checks.

So that position can’t be checked-how convenient!

She has given you the correct birth certificate? Not a younger sister’s by mistake? Though the names would be different.
Very odd. I’d have to get to the bottom of it too. Surely if the job titles are made up or exaggerated she must realise she’s stating jobs she supposedly had at 13 years old.

Lying on your cv is a serious fault and it’s clearly both a firable offence and not age discrimination. The question to hr is not are you happy with hiring her given her age, but are you happy accepting her cv is legitimate and not very exaggerated or outright faked given her age as per her birth certificate. I’d phone HR and on the call say now I’m going to put all this in an email as I’m going to be this persons line manager (if that’s true) and I want my concerns on record if she crashes and burns. I think this cv is worth further investigation before continuing wiht onboarding but that is your department to decide.

No it isnt. You can work for 20 hours a week.
There are absolutely no checks about training- so you can work full time as long as that role includes "training'- it does not have to be.a formal apprenticeship. Companies can have their own training programmes.

Could it not just be something as simple as a typo on her cv?

Not sure if some of the responses are a joke or there are some really wild imaginations out there

lying on a job application is gross misconduct in most companies.

i wouldn’t be saying to hr that you were withdrawing the job offer because of her age, I would say that her documents show her application to be a complete fabrication.

does the application not ask for education dates?

I bet she had her birth certificate re-issued in 2002 and someone mistakenly wrote the current year rather than her actual birth year 1992.

Just ask her!

No. Education and Skills Act 2008, section 2: the duty is to take part in education or training up to the age of 18. Not employment. Unless they were in Scotland or Northern Ireland, possibly.

The first two companies don't exist anymore. Gone under. The last one does though

There are 3 companies listed on the CV.

2/3 no longer exist but she said she managed to give us a reference from the one before last because she had contact with her ex boss. We were happy to take that, and the alternative, as advised by HR at the time, was to just Accept the one reference we could've got at the time from the company still standing

But if you look on their website, the emails don't add up.

So obviously each department in that company will work differently but for example the email she gave is '[email protected] and their other contact emails are things like [email protected]

@LittleYellowDog my mistake.

Does the DoB on the passport and on the birth certificate match?

You could also check the birth certificate against the GRO website if she was born in England /Wales.

As an aside, where are these companies that hire people on £40k jobs with only GCSE requirements?

I am currently looking for work and the majority of jobs over about £25k are demanding degree level qualifications.

I would also think she’s exaggerated or lied on her CV. You really need to have a documented conversation with her to confirm dates etc. and then go and do your homework to substantiate it all as it sounds very unlikely to be true. I have recruited for a bank and about once every couple of weeks we had to call the police as people have turned up with forged passports (we had the means to check the serial numbers and UV markings).

Not quite sure the OPS interview process is particularly rigorous if this wasn't picked up after two interviews ? It used to be at least part of an interview was a gambol through a persons cv (which in this case wouldn't have taken a minute).

Or is £40,000 a starter salary in London nowadays ?

Most PA/EA roles don't really look at GCSE qualifications and beyond. We'd be looking at work experience mostly unless it's a niche role

My niece was born in December 2002 and was awarded GCSE grades as numbers rather than letters. We're in England (not sure if it was different in Wales or NI, if applicable).

This is juicy

However, a precious job was with a huge professional services company and someone in my team let it slip that she’d lied on her CV but didn’t get caught out. I don’t think the HR screening services that are used are always that good tbh

I'd pass this straight back to HR. Outline your concerns and ask them for guidance. And cc your own LM.

No. Education and Skills Act 2008, section 2: the duty is to take part in education or training up to the age of 18. Not employment. Unless they were in Scotland or Northern Ireland, possibly.*

Or indeed Wales.

But they can also work up to 20 hours per week alongside training.

Yes, it all matches

If she was in a job with training up to the age of 18, it would have to satisfy the fairly stringent requirements of the Education and Skills Act, and it should be set out on the CV.

Witness protection? Come on.

therecruitingoffice.co.uk/2020/03/17/new-study-63-of-job-applicants-admit-to-lying-on-cv/

63% of job applicants lie on their CVs. Some are little white lies, others are massive whoppers. Most large firms have a robust recruitment process especially for senior hires which will involve all sorts of checks into their claimed qualifications, properly checking references rather than just emailing, social media screening, basic DBS check perhaps.

Lying on a job application to secure employment falls under the definition of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception and people get sacked for it.