Job candidate has presented my work as his own

[PurplePirate]

Will try to keep this short. Have also changed some details for privacy.

I am on an interview panel tomorrow (via Zoom). The chair has just emailed through the pack which includes the slides prepared by the three candidates for their presentations. We ask them to send through their slides in advance in case there is a problem with the Zoom link on the day.

One candidate, I will call Bill, worked at the same company as me about six years ago. When I was there I led a project and I created a distinctive and rather lovely slide deck as part of my work.

FF six years and Bill has submitted my slide deck. The presentation task is something like "Describe a project you have led and your approach to organisational transformation". So do I assume Bill is going to pass my work off as his own? Do I tell the chair now? Wait until the interview and watch him twig?

Bill may not realise I am on the interview panel. We do tell candidates the names of the panel beforehand but I am a last minute replacement for a colleague who is ill so I don't know if HR updated the candidates. I was not involved in shortlisting Bill.

I'm trying to remember the last time I had an interview panel big enough to have a chair...

But either way if you do decide to talk to the chair before the interviews, do talk to them, don't put anything in writing. I think personally it's ethical to at least share that you know the person but there's a risk of an SAR later. Don't put it in an email.

If this bizarre scenario exists.

I think you are right. OP needs to raise this with the chair of the interview panel in advance, but if I was in that position I'd let the interview go ahead and then decline for another reason. Uninviting someone to an interview when OP doesn't have proof that those her slides about her project is just too potentially messy.

At my work the chair is the person leading the panel who will eventually become the line manager of whoever is appointed.

Oh just flag it. This is probably just a man who does not see an issue with it because he is a man and thinks it is pretty much his work. They are used to taking credit for all sorts of things and also getting away with it.

Now you are probably going to say it is by a woman and you just changed the gender to not be identifiable.

What I mean is I've not been at a workplace for years where there have been more than 2 interviewers. I've been too busy.

Yes, tell the chair now. If you think it might be a mix up rather than deliberate then you can say that. It's not fair to involve the rest of the panel in a gotcha without any warning.

Did Bill actually work on the project at all? If so, is it possible that he's not claiming to have created the slides and is planning just to talk about his part of the work? (Might be clutching at straws a bit here.)

Fair enough, and me too! It just sounds from OP's posts that she is not the decision maker in this scenario and she needs to speak to whoever on the panel actually is.

Why does anyone come here?!

For advice, support, and solidarity.

As has been said @PurplePirate inform The Chair.

im bagging a seat for the outcome

I would actually love to grill him about the project and show up his lack of knowledge. And to see his face when he sees that you are on the panel.

Yes, you tell the chair now

saying it afterward would not look good given they know you will have seen the slides.

Be prepared op... that this person may be hired. Do not create a situation where that could happen end you come off worse...

I once took a job with someone working for me who had previously been my peer. He didn't mention to the hiring managers this was the case and I had no beef with him. But he actively did everything to undermine me in that position. It must have put his nose out of joint that I got the job and he didn't.

So be very careful about what you say. Keep it above board, ethical and only verbal. Because some people may still hire him anyway and you don't want that to be super awkward if they do. Likewise you don't want to act unethically and not declare you have previous knowledge which may influence the outcome.

Oh, to have the confidence of a mediocre white man.*

Not only is he using your slides, he hasn’t even clocked that you might work for the very employer he’s interviewing with. You could’ve used them yourself or even been on the panel.

The audacity is almost impressive.

*Other genders and ethnicities are, of course, available for this level of confidence.

You'll have to declare that you know him anyway? Definitely flag the plagiarism to the panel beforehand.

You need to tell the chair, and hopefully they will contact the candidate and explain the actual reason he is going to have the interview cancelled, rather than a generic “no longer needed” email.

Reminds me of the anecdote about some bloke at a conference telling a woman to look at x's work on a subject, without bothering to check that he was actually talking to x...

I assume you do know what to do but I thank you for sharing!

We didn't have memory stick access for security reasons back at my last proper job in 2007. 😁

I’ve had someone send me one of own comprehensive pieces of documentation as an example of what he’d done. I took great delight in responding to say ‘thanks, I know this is a great example because I wrote it’.

@PurplePirate like you I’d want to check he hadn’t misunderstood. However, in that case I’d not be impressed that he couldn’t follow the instructions (something I regularly consider when interviewing - the amount of people who don’t provide a covering letter, which I always ask for). If I only had a few applicants I may let it go but all these things add up; if there were loads, I’d be looking to weed out people. I’d definitely discuss with the Chair and ask details that he should know.

He will be sick as a dog when he sees you sitting there

Definitely flag up.

My thought would be- If they've lied about this, what else have they lied about?

Tell HR and the chair of the selection committee. He’s appropriated your work

It’s a really weird situation when it comes to actually having to call someone out. I’ve just received an application which was blatant AI, against lots of other high quality apps that either weren’t AI or the applicants had the good sense to remove the huge tell tale signs. Although the I am 100% confident that this is the case (and more to the point, it’s not great in terms of the skills for the role) it’s very difficult to feed this back. I don’t blame you for questioning yourself but I’d let the interview go ahead and reflect your reservations in your scoring.

This. Must be reported to chair immediately. They may wish to select another candidate. In any event it cannot remain a secret.

Yeah its fraud OP, plaigerism.

File > Info > Related People.
Are you listed as the author?

It makes more sense for companies to ask all candidates to do a presentation on a particular subject the company chooses and so people can't just churn out some previously optimised deck that they may or may not have contributed to. In the past I was asked to present how I'd go about a project the company already running and something I wasn't familiar with - it was more work but interesting and I got the job