Claiming degrees you dont have

[51daystoChristmas]

Hi, I have a colleague who is claiming to have degrees she doesnt have. She has two degrees on her email signature that don't match the ones on our company CVs that go out to third parties which is what led me to noticing. So I did a bit of checking and on LinkedIn she has a completely different degree listed, with the university name. So I emailed the university which is in Australia, that information is on public record there, and they confirmed that degree and date. She works on winning business for the company so I think any sort of fraud would be really bad for the company, she's worked here for 10 years though. She has recently been promoted, and is good at her job. I'm in a different team and it makes no difference to me, I was just wondering if I should let anyone know as they've just won a really public facing project. What do you think?

How do you know she hasn’t got those qualifications? I tailor my CV according to the roles I’m going for. I have a wide range of qualifications which makes me look unfocused so I only list the ones that apply - same as previous experience - I tailor that to the roles. I have an MPA - a Master of Public Administration. Nobody knows what that means (it’s an MBA tailored to the public sector) so I’ll often write MBA (Public).

I have a friend in local government policy who has a PhD in Food Science, but she doesn’t call herself Dr. and doesn’t include it on CVs for promotion because she feels it’s irrelevant and distracting. She highlights her Prince 2 qualification at every opportunity though!

@Friendlygingercat the one employer who didn't want to see my certificates was a university. 'Oh, no,' said the nice HR person, handing back my passport, 'we check those on *some sort of system/database thing so we don't need your certificates.'

*It was a long time ago and I can't remember the name of it.

So surely the HR department have procedures in place to make sure this doesn’t happen. I’m not an architect but I can’t imagine walking into a construction company and they just taking my word for it.

Personally, I really hate people who claim to have qualifications that they don't. It means they lack integrity and are liars.; If they lie about this, what else do they lie about? It doesn't say much for your HR if they haven't noticed this.

You can either give her a very wide berth or just ask her about her degrees on her signature in an innocent 'I'm curious' way. There may be an 'innocent' explanation.

For every professional role I have worked in I have had to produce my qualification certificates, plus passport, birth certificate, marriage certificate etc so they can match up my names with my qualifications. I'm registered with professional bodies and this information is available online and checked by my employer.

If she is claiming to I be a registered professional I can't imagine any large organisation not checking that she really is.

I don't understand how you can be so sure she is not, when your only evidence appears to be an email signature and linked in.

Well this is funny because I am an Architect.

It is illegal to claim to claim to be a qualified architect or call yourself an architect when you aren’t one. Like actually illegal, the title is protected by the law.

And did the companies you worked for want to see proof?

You might be surprised how often people claim to be an Architect when they are an Architectural Assistant or a Surveyor or Builder! My DH is a qualified Architect and checks anyone he comes across claiming to be one - reporting them if they aren't registered.

A lot of HR departments just don't bother checking qualifications in my experience.

I agree with you it's fraud

From what you’ve posted, you’ve only been in contact with one university who has confirmed she has a degree in architecture. Presumably the other degrees that you think she doesn’t have are higher degrees, hence your concern, and these are listed on her sig/CV as from the same university?

If so, that seems pretty stupid of her/your employer. However I’m not sure HR would be the way to go with this. Did they verify your degree/s or qualifications? If not then no reason they’d have done that for her, so that’s on them. You’d have to explain your sleuthing and I don’t think that would make you look good.

You could ask her outright, in a way that removes your assumption that she’s lying. Be curious and open-minded ‘I just noticed this and wondered whether we should make sure clients know why they don’t align’. But also hard if there’s no reason why your work strands overlap.

You might have to just stew on this one.

Why is it funny?

Ok, but has she been promoted or appointed based on any of these alleged qualifications? Does she actually need any of these qualifications to do her current role?

Whilst I agree it’s embarrassingly dishonest to claim to have several degrees if she hasn’t, actually got them, and possibly fraud or gross misconduct, if she hasn’t gained anything professionally/financially from these false claims then maybe you should just step back and hope that if/when she’s found out it doesn’t impact you.

I'm struggling to understand how you know she doesn't hold these degrees. They could be under a different name. And if this is actually so important to the company don't you think HR would have done this due diligence in checking said qualifications before hiring her?

You're so rattled in your, seemingly, hatred for this woman you're winding yourself over something that is really none of your business. How honest and integral do you think you're being by running around playing detective on your colleagues?

I'm guessing you wanted her promotion?

Yes, certificates were scanned and kept on file and the company would pay my registration fees with RIBA and the ARB directly and make sure I was doing appropriate CPD hours to maintain registration. A certificate that confirms my chartered status was kept on the wall of the office with everyone else’s.

From what OP has described I don’t think they work for an architecture practice which probably means the companies involvement is a bit different. The person that this thread is about doesn’t sound like they are practicing as an architect either, it sounded like their job was in sales.

That is correct, IME.

Because when I posted earlier talking about honesty and integrity being required by the professional body that governs my profession I didn’t say I was an architect. I was talking generally.

So it’s funny that the code of conduct for architects is relevant here because I didn’t expect it to be.

Maybe inform HR anonymously. Then they is no come back to you. Problem solved

How do you have access to her CV? Surely that’s securely stored in her HR file? So either you’re in HR and should use your professional judgement on next steps, or you’re misappropriating the access you have to people’s confidential information.
How do you know what her CV says?

The majority of organisations have one.

We often have to put forward company versions of people’s CVs for tender bids. So the person preparing the bid has this information.

The bid may then be relevant to the wider project team if it forms part of the contract.

So does it matter if someone doesnt have the degrees?

Although, someone from Australia did mention in the earlier thread that a request to a university there requires the written consent of the person who has the degree. Now, I’m not Australian so I don’t know if that’s correct, but I have no reason to doubt it. In which case this either this whole thread is made up (the most likely…), or the OP has forged her colleagues signature / consent. Which makes a mockery of the moral high ground she is claiming :)

Then the HR dept are foolish and lacking, not to mention negligent.

So if you discovered someone high up in your organisation was lying about their qualifications you would just ignore it and think that was ok?

No of course not. But you don't really know that at all. You have just noticed a difference between her email signature and her linked in, which could be for innocent reasons. We are simply suggesting some of the many other reasons.

For example, my linked in is now several years out of date because I'm not job hunting and can't be arsed with updating it, and my email signature is the one I was asked to put on by my employer. They are not a full and accurate description of my career.

I'm just not seeing the conclusive evidence of intentional deception and fraud that you seem to think it is.

And is that part of your job role? Is it your job to check CVs? If so then I think you can legitimately bring this up, but not in a ‘gotcha’ way, but in a professional I need to verify your qualifications as they don’t match your cv, way.

Sorry, that was aimed at OP.