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.

Are you copy and pasting to every poster??
My reply was clearly about the amount of people, you included who suggested the op needs to contact the chair straight away
Despite her saying she already has
Also agreeing with the other poster I quoted that people on mumsnet generally have a view you must do contact someone "right now" and update straight away
Was that not clear? I can explain more if you "dont know what im on about"

I’d like to see the slide deck. I’m always on the lookout for an interesting set. There’s only so far you can go with clip art.

No, you agreed with a poster who accused me of not understanding that the OP was dealing with it.

I wasn’t replying to the OP. I was commenting on another poster who said they would wait until the interview. Nothing to do with the OP. Then a whole bunch of you started quoted me, saying “oh look at mumsnet, telling the OP to do what she already did.”

I quoted someone else and commented on what they advised. I didn’t quote the OP and comment on what she was doing.

So, what are you on about?

Did you know beforehand (ie prior to agreeing to join the panel, or prior to reviewing the presentations) that you knew this candidate? Many organisations have very clear rules in their recruitment policies about the need for panel members to declare previous knowledge of a candidate once they are aware of it, so a decision can be made whether it is appropriate to join the panel. This is to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

That said, you can't unknow what you have learned about the presentation so you have no choice but to notify the chair, you should do this before the interview. A decision can then be made by the chair (probably in consultation with HR) about the appropriate way forward.

I am not entirely clear whether this amounts to plagiarism, it is always possible the candidate acted in good faith. I suggest avoiding any accusations and just outline the facts as you understand them and your concerns, and let decisions be made from there.

To be fair, I was a little tongue in cheek, however I have spent a large part of my career watching people passing other people's work off as their own. I've had it done to me many times. I hate it. Standing on the shoulders of giants is one thing, but plagiarism is a whole other thing and IMHO the perpetrator gets what they deserve.

Also, they may actually surprise me and have a very reasonable explanation. It could be as simple as "I got this presentation from someone else, and it was so good, I used it on a future project which was the one I led on...."

I didn’t suggest shaming them……?

Just on my way home after my meeting so I haven’t fully caught up with the thread. The chair has messaged me back and we are going to try to speak some time this evening. She is also offsite so it’s not very easy to have a complex, confidential conversation.

Fine but the ops not you and she should act professionally and transparently with the chair. Quite frankly any advice to shame him, make him squirm, etc should she go with it makes her as bad as him, unprofessional and shouldn’t be on the panel.

Well now you lost me, it’s hardly complex is it. Hi, I looked at joes deck, it is one I created for x project, I am unsure why he has put if forward, he was on the project periphery but thought I should let you know in advance.

If there is a chance it was a mistake, let him know before the interview that he must have read the brief wrong or uploaded the wrong thing as you wrote what he has sent. If he sends you a new one, then you can give him the benefit of the doubt.

Llots of what is presented these days is copied from somewhere, or taken from AI.

Agree.
No need to humiliate him. He’ll learn his lesson.

You have to admit, the guy's been dreadfully unlucky having you on the interviewing panel. Never in a million years would he expect this, and he'd probably get away with it 99% of the time.
😄

Whilst it would obviously be richly satisfying to ambush the guy, you've done the right thing by flagging this to the panel chair now

The PP was talking about she would be annoyed IF she was the chair IF it wasn’t mentioned before the interview and the OP had waits until after the interview.

How is it complex? He's plagiarised your work. He's been found out. I'm assuming the employer isn't looking for copycat employees. The interview is cancelled

Coming to this late. Be open with the chair and it is good you are doing this before the interview, but as you say he may not intend to pass your work off as his own. Wait and see what he says before jumping to conclusions.

Good luck with the panel.

Incredible I hope karma catches him

Yes it makes the op looo unprofessional, did she not bother to read it, did she read it and hide it do she could ambush him and catch them all by surprise.

Imagine the blood draining from his face when he walks in and sees OP. I’d love to see it. But yes OP, stop farting around on MN and send a bloody email now rather than waiting for confidential chats this evening.

Why “obviously”? I would say that was a bit of a knee jerk reaction when the guy may have a great reason for using the slides and could perform brilliantly in the rest of the interview.

innocent until proven guilty I would have thought (though this is Mumsnet and he is a man).

The thing is, OP, if he wasn't passing off your slide deck as his own (allegedly), would you employ him? He may have done great things in the last 6-7 years.

How bizarre that you remember every word you wrote seven years(!) ago on this brilliant “slide deck”.

He’s taken inspiration from work you did a long time ago. We all do it. Take it as a compliment. There’s no way you can know if the data in the presentation is the same as you had all those years ago, and frankly if you don’t work with him you don’t know what he’s going to talk about. Surely if he has used the presentation as a template, the most important aspect of his interview is his actual interview! Fair enough, if he turns up and claims he literally did what you did all those years ago then you’ve every right to chase him. But that’s not what’s happened.

It’s an interview. Everyone who walks through the door will be exaggerating the truth in some way.

I’ve just had to reproduce work that was done in 2018 on an old system. I’ve presented in the same way as it was previously presented because that’s what my stakeholders will be expecting to see. If the colleague who completed this task in 2018 was to see it, he’d likely make the same arguments you have.

Why isn't he presenting one of them, then?

For me the bigger issue is that he is using a presentation that belongs to his current employer, whoever wrote it, rather than doing something new in his own time that belongs to him. This shows a total disrespect tor rules on confidentiality that is indicative as to how he will treat his new employer (and I’m not talking about whether the project being described is sensitive, but the general principle that he is bringing a work presentation that belongs to his current employer to an interview).

That's your opinion. Mine differs.