Last week, Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson was called to step down from his position following a scandal involving his credentials. An investor recently discovered that on Thompson’s resume, the ex-CEO claims he graduated with a computer science degree from Stonehill College, when in fact he finished with an accounting degree. A computer science degree did not even exist at the school at the time.
When the truth came out, Thompson blamed a headhunting firm for misrepresenting his education when he was in the process of being hired by eBay in the mid-2000s. It didn’t work. The firm fought back by providing Yahoo! with a copy of Thompson’s original resume – fake degree and all.
A while back, I talked about how to cope productively in the wake of scandal. And cope productively Thompson did not. For all of the details about what he did wrong and how you can avoid it, check out my recent post on the Quickbase blog.
Great post Alexandra!
You would think that someone who was smart enough to get to the executive level would know not to lie on his resume.
What’s worse was the cover up. As you mentioned, acting defensively makes things worse. There are countless examples of how this has burned people. People should remember the best policy is to approach the situation like a band-aid; admit your fault quickly and move on… or better yet, don’t lie in the first place.
How do you draw the line between making your resume sound as good as possible with stretching the truth too far?
-Aaron
Posted by: Aaron McDaniel | May 31, 2012 at 07:21 AM
@Aaron: Great question, and I feel it's a fine line. I like to ask myself: "if the employer found out that I said on my resume that I was an account supervisor instead of an account manager (for instance), would he or she care?" If the answer is yes, then you've probably gone too far.
Posted by: Alexandra Levit | August 21, 2012 at 04:45 PM