Colleague lied on CV

[goteam]

Would you say something if a colleague lied on their CV? I was promoted last year and had in my own time completed a qualification required for the promotion. Our HR department are crap. They never chased me up for the certificate. I mentioned at the time to a colleague that HR didn't chase me up. A few months ago she applied for a promotion and put this qualification down. She told me she hadn't done it but knew they wouldn't check. The lack of expertise is showing and staff she line manages are really struggling with her basically being a bit crap. I want to say something to HR but it is done now and they can't retract the job and I'm also worried they will close ranks to hide their incompetence. What would you do?

Well unfortunately, I couldn't work any jobs when I was younger and living in a refuge. I was also only allowed to study a certain number of hours so I did an A level over getting any GCSEs. I was doing GCSEs but I had to quit them all. I was told while doing my GCSEs that my work was of an A level standard - I would get full marks on the parts I did do because it wasn't possible to grade me higher. So while I don't have a certificate, I'm perfectly capable.

There's no way I'm going to deliberately disadvantage myself by saying that I don't have GCSEs. No one would know. No one would guess. No one would check. Yeah, I could have worked shitty jobs that required no qualifications instead in order to please someone like you. But I get one life and I'm glad I didn't waste it.

The colleague lied about their qualification and is now "crap at their job".

Does it directly impact you? In what way? If you have specific issues about how they work and what they do or don't know, then it would be better to raise your concerns directly to them, rather than taking the attitude of "because they don't have the qualification it must make them crap".

Any unconscious bias creeping in there?

I would approach the department that has responsibility for checking this type of staff data - probably HR, but could be Training and Development? You dont have to be rude or critical about the member of staff. I look after some data in my organisation (where staff effectively go through a vetting type procedure to be employed) and a query arose about a new-ish member of staff. Data conflicted, so I emailed HR, provided details of the conflicting info, asked them to take whatever steps they felt necessary and I didnt need to be involved any more. I have views as to what the correct data is mostly likely to be and it could have implications for the organisation. I was comfortable doing what I did - having integrity to raise an issue, but knowing where my responsibilities stopped.

@GetInTheBinThenGetInTheSea You make it hard to feel sorry for you.
A lot of women on MN have shared their effing terrible stories. They had nothing, they came from nothing, yet they've have achieved so much. They managed to work several jobs at the same time, feed their kids by themselves, pay for rent and food all alone, mother several kids AND they still managed to actually get some sort of qualification because the fact is there are several one could get without GSCEs.
You could have gone to university like so many did while being a parent at the same time. You could have got a certificate or a diploma of sorts. You could have done an aprenticeship yet you choose to deceive others. You lack ethical principals.
I can't even imagine what kind of a job you do wher eyou can get away with knowing nothing about it. In fact, you're sounding more and more bonkers with every post.

I was also only allowed to study a certain number of hours
I thought libraries were free? There are loads of warm places where one can study for free. You're just making it up as you go along.

I wasn't put on this earth to impress you or make you feel sorry for me.

You can get as mad as you like about my decisions. I don't regret a single thing. I'd do it again tomorrow in a heartbeat if I needed to.

I've spent a lot of my adult life as an autodidact. But I was not allowed to be in full time education and sit GSCEs when I was younger without becoming homeless because there's no way I could have afforded the rent on the refuge I was living in. It cost a serious amount of money if you weren't entitled to housing benefit. If you don't find that credible, I'm afraid you need to open your eyes because that's the world now and it was then too.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/domestic-abuse-refuges-women-trapped-lockdown-coronavirus-choose-job-or-stay-with-abuser_uk_60421a6dc5b69078ac6a6fde

You cannot work or be in full time education if you need a place in a refuge. Get angry about that, if you want to be mad about something.

Any good company would (a) investigate and discipline an employee suspected of lying to them (probably in this case via dismissal) and (b) ensure the employee who reported it was protected if not outright rewarded. Of course many companies are not good ones.

@GetInTheBinThenGetInTheSea Don't use a world pandemic as an excuse. I find your story doesn't add up. Let's be honest you've been lying about this for so long you've started to believe your own lie- that takes time. It didn't happen during Covid. Still, let's agree to disagree. I'm not getting into an argument with a deluded liar.

You know nothing about me and what I've had to overcome....without the need for advantage by deception.

I'm sorry for situation, although really I'm not am I, I don't know you.

I'm allowed to judge the behaviour itself. on a public forum where the question is about lying about a qualification that enables a promotion though. Everyone has a story don't they, maybe we should just do away with qualifications anyway and everyone should just submit a sob story to get a job. Because that sounds fairer doesn't it

@GetInTheBinThenGetInTheSea sounds like you are saying you fabricated GCSEs and everything after that you achieved through hard work. While I don't agree with lying I think that is slightly different to a 50 something

year old who can't be arsed to put in the hard graft fabricating a professional qualification for a promotion. Meaning others who have put in the hard graft were overlooked.

I have no idea what you think you're arguing about. This was over 20 years ago so it had nothing to do with the pandemic. But the article quite clearly shows that you must be on benefits to get a refuge place.

When I hit 18, I had to quit my GCSEs. If you don't want to believe that, fair enough. It doesn't change the facts.

Yes, there's been a lot of hard work. Even harder because I left school at 14 and missed a huge amount of education before that. I'm actually proud of the fact that no one would suspect a thing. I've never had so much as an odd look.

@GetInTheBinThenGetInTheSea Many people move to refuges with nothing. It's up to the staff there to help them apply for benefits and get them help. I disagree only people with benefits get a place as so many in the know can tell you from experience.
Again you're using an article about a world pandemic to justify what you did 20 years ago. Let's end it here, this is pointless.

It is pointless if you genuinely believe a load of rubbish, yes. If you don't get benefits, the cost of a refuge place is beyond the means of most people. That's simply the world we live in. If you want to believe that living in a refuge is affordable without benefits, go ahead.

Although I'm seriously wondering at this point which one of us it is who didn't get sufficiently educated...

😂 That’s the sort of thing actors say in prison dramas. OP isn’t in some gang with this person, it’s a dodgy work colleague who obtained a promotion by fraud over someone else who would have got it had the liar not stepped in. OP owes this person nothing and they deserve to be fired.

OP I would put nothing in writing but I would try to get to know someone in HR, even if only on the phone, and ask if it would be possible to have a very confidential chat. I’d then explain what happened to that one HR person and leave it up to them whether they want to ask for certificates or not.

You're full of nonsense!
You sound like a deluded flatmate I had who told everybody he studied aerospace engineering but knew shit about thermodynamics! He'd complain about the electricity bill and then put the heater in full blast with all the windows open. Then he'd go out for a smoke and leave the bloody doors to the garden wide open too. He thought he knew an awful lot but really he didn't and it effing showed. He also enjoyed drinking a little too much so when I talked about his aeronautical engineering degree he went on and on about how great it was.
You think you know a lot?! No, I bet you not everybody thinks that, you're deluded in believing that, they just talk behind your back.

I would do this and would add that I was sorry for the delay, I had forgotten all about it until chatting with a colleague who mentioned that they hadn't had theirs checked yet either.

I have no idea where that diatribe came from, but you sound incredibly angry and bitter about something completely unrelated to anything previously discussed. Are you having a particularly bad day?

@GetInTheBinThenGetInTheSea That flew over your head, didn't it?! 😂

Are you actually alright? You're posting some very odd things.