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Another Possible Factual Stretch on the Resume

Funny, how things come in waves.  Seems to be a lot of creative fiction out there with regards to what people put on their resumes.  Some employment candidates stretch the truth a little bit, and then some make the whole thing up.   I wrote about this some time ago in an article entitled, What to Do When There are Discrepancies on Your Candidate’s Resume.  And then I recently re-posted that article.

Employers and recruiters often feel the upper level candidates wouldn’t dare lie on their resumes, or, to be kind, exaggerate their resumes.  How would they dare?  Wouldn’t they be discovered?  Apparently not.  Apparently, some upper level executives go for a long time  with fictional aspects to their resume, before it is discovered.   Take the former head at Yahoo, and any number of senior level executives who falsely claimed degrees or credentials other than what they could corroborate.

So it is not just the lower level candidates who stretch the truth.  You can understand it there at the middle and lower level hires.  What with the economy still struggling and with job competition being so fierce, everyone is looking to get what edge they can.

But now we potentially have a new candidate for the highlight reel on stretching the truth on a resume.  It appears that Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, may not be all that she says she could be.   Or that she was, take your pick.  According to the article in the Boston Globe…  “In at least two applications for federal grants over the past decade, Berlowitz said she received a doctorate in English from New York University in 1969, a degree NYU said she never earned.

Berlowitz said in the applications for funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities that she had a “D. Phil” — the British abbreviation for a doctorate of philosophy or PhD — from NYU. The academy also described her repeatedly as a doctor in an employment ad.”

The article reflects that Berlowitz may have exaggerated her achievements in order to win a variety of generous grants.  So far, Berlowitz isn’t talking.

Said the article…said Berlowitz’s public relations representative…”“Neither the academy nor President Berlowitz is going to respond to subjective, interpretive, and gossipy allegations from former employees and unnamed sources,” Howell said in the statement. “Nor are they going to respond to personal questions that are irrelevant, do not belong in the public domain and, frankly, smack of sexism.”

And the beat goes on.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.

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