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.

FGS don't discuss his application or the recruitment process with your ex colleagues, as you are a member of the recruiting panel that could backfire horribly against you & your organisation. Best to avoid contacting them at all, at least until the process is completely over and key decisions are made.

I agree - we put as little as possible in writing when recruiting - it can so easily bite you on the bum, I'd have called the Chair to discuss.

I'm sure the Op isn't going to contact her ex colleagues, she's basically said she'd like to but can't..

The OP said she was 'itching to get the lowdown' on the candidate from ex colleagues. That could be interpreted as meaning either that she couldn't wait to contact them about him and planned to do so asap, or that she wanted to do so but knew she couldn't. I agree that I hope she meant the latter.

I read "itching to" as "know I shouldn't but might anyway". Hence my response. Being a gossip is the surest way to not be treated seriously in your industry.

I think in this whole dilemma and as I work in an industry where it's common for me to encounter ex colleagues, I'd say that the issue is being viewed as a contained thing around recruitment but it has a much wider context.

The context I see is that she may encounter this guy again. Either he's recruited (possible) or rejected (probable) and the latter may include being rejected and getting wind that you are in the new company (especially if you're on the panel) and assuming you had some hand in the rejection.

Either way you could end up with a colleague you don't really rate due to his actions or an ex colleague bad mouthing you across the industry.

Tread carefully op. Keep it professional and I personally don't think it would be ethical (nor wise) to be an interviewer in the circumstances.

there is no way someone who is lying in an interview about work the did should be a candidate for a senior and sensitive role.

if you and the chair are feeling super generous you let him go ahead and see if there’s any credible way he’s presenting it which isn’t claiming to have done work he didn’t do.

personally I wouldn’t waste my time.

I wouldn't cancel the interview because then there is a proof issue. What does the company have apart from the word of a former colleague of his that this work is plagiarised? They have none. That could leave them on very dodgy legal ground if they reject his application based on that.

Do we all know that discussions go on behind the backs of applicants? Hell yes of course they do. But IMO a company would be very stupid to accept him for interview then reject him on the basis of what he's sent in interview preparation. It leaves them open to a claim later. He could claim a level of bullying from the OP or victimisation if he has a protected characteristic.

If the applicant has done as the OP has said, they will fall apart under questioning and dig their own hole. Realise they won't get the job and are likely to accept it, especially if the OP is not part of the panel. The hour or two wasted interviewing him is worth it in the long run.

I've been on one of these panels before and had to declare I knew the candidate, have you done that yet?

There’s no legal risk. He’s being rejected on the grounds he’s submitted plagiarised work. Theres no legal protection against that, even if he has every protected characteristic under the sun.

As she's talked to the Chair about her history with him, I'd say take that as read.

And how do you evidence it's plagiarised? The OP has already (rightly) said her presentation remained with the previous company. It's only her memory from 8 years ago which says it's plagiarised.

What if he put in a claim that she'd bullied him in his previous firm and is continuing that behaviour now? For the sake of 1-2 hours, it's just better avoided IMO.

If the plagiarised deck is never mentioned, he'll just continue to use it ever after. At least if the issue is raised, it might put him off continuing to act like it's his. I'd trust the OP's firm/chair/HR to cover off the proof issue and risks of any claims. They sound like a proper co with systems in place so shouldn't be running scared of bogus bullying threats by a bullshitting chancer. If it really came to it - which I doubt it would - OP could get the evidence to prove she did the slides. It's not just her memory. It actually happened and can be evidenced if essential.

Under what legal process would any of these unsubstantiated claims happen?

the only claim you can make pre employment is that failing to recruit you was unlawful discrimination arising from a protected characteristic. You can’t just allege that, you have to have some evidence.

their defence would be “nope, nothing to do with X characteristic, it’s because we sincerely believed the presentation was plagiarised.”

the end.

Fair enough. But I wouldn't take the risk as you cannot assume he has no protected characteristic, just because he's a man. And even if he has one and it's nothing to do with that characteristic, he could claim it is. Even an attempt at this is not worth the time vs. actually interviewing him. They've probably spent more time talking about him already than the interview would actually take. Also it's not worth it even outside of that legal angle because, as I've pointed out before, he'll know who has shared the information and trust me, you don't want people bad mouthing you in a small industry. And people will even if they don't know all the facts.

But hey not your job, not my job so whatever.

I think it's terrible that the rules around protected characteristics create such fear that someone would be this frightened of a candidate who has done the wrong thing. It's not even known that protected characteristics are in play, but even if they were, it shouldn't mean companies must shit themselves to this extent. The protected characteristics are there for an important reason to make employers be fair and inclusive. They're not there so liars can get away with plagiarism. I'd really hope OP's company would be a bit more robust than you're suggesting.

But what is the evidence that "the rules around protected characteristics create such fear that someone would be this frightened of a candidate who has done the wrong thing"?!! Just because protected characteristics have been mentioned on an MN thread, doesn't mean they will be a concern in this real-world case! I think the Equality act has become a bit like GDPR on MN, in that everyone knows just enough about it to raise it as an issue but most of us lack the deeper understanding of it that decent employers utilise. It isn't a bogeyman!!

People are genuinely frightened by it (our company was). I'm surprised that there is no evidence - has there been a study and it came back with nothing or has no one bothered to ask.

Eh? The evidence is @Lemonthyme's post which I'm replying to. I'm saying the same thing you are, that it shouldn't be a concern in this real-world case, providing balance to the view expressed on MN that it should be a concern. I'm not saying it's a bogeyman - I'm saying they shouldn't see it as a bogeyman, but that poster clearly does and since I posted so does @remotecontrolledphone

My org has slides in advance and they come via a Canva or google link usually. We use Zoom over teams and Google meet for all of our meetings. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.

If he had asked me to prepare a presentation then I would happily have done so for him. He actually asked through the grapevine for some pieces of information for his own presentation, but instead just stole mine.
I didn’t work for him, he was in a different division, I was just helping him out as a matter of courtesy. A simple acknowledgement would have been nice. Obviously I never offered to help him again.

What a day.

Firstly, all the questions about our internal policies and my actions...

As I mentioned before we have a very bureaucratic, cautious HR approach. For appointments at this level they require a minimum of three people on the panel. Fair enough, it's a big investment. Yes, we use Zoom. Yes, we ask for presentations in advance just in case of signal interruptions. No, we don't steal the candidates' IP, we keep copies only for as long as we need to. Yes, I declared that I worked in the same organisation as Bill, but I didn't work directly with him, know anything about his work or socialise with him so it was deemed that there was no conflict of interest. I called rather than emailed the chair because I didn't want to put anything in writing - SAR etc. Finally, to confirm, I did not contact any former colleagues, nor would I disclose anything I shouldn't.

We had a hurried meeting with HR first thing this morning. Upshot was they recommended going ahead with the interview and cautioned about quizzing Bill any more than the other candidates in case it was viewed as unequal treatment. They said we couldn't assume he was going to claim my work as his until he gave the presentation - innocent until proven guilty. HR bod decided they should be in attendance just in case it all kicked off.

I was not looking forward to the interview. I know in everyone's imagination there would be a delicious moment where Bill realises his CF-ery had come back to bite him on the bum, but, in reality, I was dreading any kind of confrontation or argument. There is every possibility I could encounter him again in a professional capacity.

Then - Bill was a no-show! He emailed HR 40 minutes before to say he was withdrawing his application as he had just received another offer which he had accepted. We didn't get the message until just as his interview was due to start, so by that point I was a nervous wreck.

The remaining candidates were both excellent, thankfully. We are mulling them over tonight and will hopefully make an appointment tomorrow.

@PurplePirate is it possible he found out you're on the panel?

I must admit, I could see several possibilities here

But I think the hardest thing for you would've been proving that it was your work.

Honestly, this is just my experience, but I bet your senior person was annoyed that you reported it because they would just rather not deal with how complex it is.

Anyway, I'm glad it's been resolved without conflict.

Ha ha I think he twigged 🤣

He emailed HR 40 minutes before to say he was withdrawing his application as he had just received another offer which he had accepted.

He probably used your slides for that job interview too OP.

He totally twigged. Hope you've got a glass of wine/ cup of tea and a rest to look forward to OP! So interesting to get an insight into how HR in a large business handles this sort of scenario ie that Bill would have been given the benefit of the doubt so as to protect the business from any accusations of unfairness.