Job Applicants, Verify Your Degree With Me. Employers in UK? Most Don’t Bother To Check
My work as a Notary Public involves a great deal of verification of paperwork. Boring, you think? Depends on your mind-set, you could consider it quite exciting. Detective work, sometimes.
What I am doing is important and could in the worst cases save companies from financial disaster.
I do tend to find that prospective employers in England seem to take a relaxed attitude to the question of prior verification of the academic qualifications and previous job references of job applicants.
The attitude seems to be, Candidate A seemed very bright and dressed smartly – OK you can start on Monday. Put the reference letters in the desk drawer.
And if Candidate A can do the job well, what’s the problem if the paperwork is forged?
There was, I understand, a “Doctor” struck off the register in Bradford years ago, who had been practising as a GP for over fifteen years. He apparently had a basic training in pharmacy but was never trained or qualified as a doctor in any Country. His patients seemed to stay alive for as long as most Doctors’ patients. No harm done?
Not really. It would just take one misdiagnosis, one tragedy, perhaps just one mistake in a difficult diagnosis that even a real Doctor might also have made, and the financial compensation claims against the relevant Trust don’t bear thinking about.
I can see that it must be very frustrating, looking at matters from the job applicant’s point of view, if the advertisement for your dream job says “Minimum qualification a 2:1 Degree”. And you only have a 2:2. And you know that you were only five points off a 2:1 anyway.
And maybe they think it over and say – what does my Degree matter anyway? I am bright and clever and I will work really hard and learn to do the job just as well as if I had the better Degree. And anyway, a person like Lord Sugar has no academic papers to his name, but is one of the biggest business successes Britain has seen. So, what do exams matter?
The answer to that is – First, there is no person LIKE Lord Sugar, and secondly, the question you should be asking is, what does dishonesty matter?
What does it matter? Leaving philosophy to one side, the practical answer is it can ruin careers. Here is an example – Link Here
Business consultants can be found disagreeing with each other all over the internet as to whether it is best to hire a “blank slate” and train on site – for example the apprenticeship model – or go for the fully qualified candidate with a successful record of work already established. But none of them suggest that Businesses should hire liars.
No, degree verification is about weeding out crooks and liars, those applicants who have decided to trick prospective employers. And if they are dishonest as to their attainments, what are the chances they will become honest employees if they get the job?
So as for the English practice of keeping the references in the desk drawer, in my view, if an employer doesn’t check references until after the candidate gas engineer has exploded a house or two then that employer deserves everything he is going to get.
But one can sympathise – Most humans are disposed to be trusting. If a person looks OK, they are OK, right? Which is exactly what the crook and the con man knows and profits from.
I was going to include links to websites where you can buy fake degrees. But then I thought again – since these sites are obviously run by crooks, there will probably be all kinds of viruses to be caught from them. Don’t click.
But if you put a google search for “Where to buy a Fake Degree” – Wow
From one of them – and I love the university level spelling – this tagline
Get Accredited Degree!
No Need to taky any exams or study, you can get real degree from real universities without opening a single book!
[No, really, DON’T].
There is a British organisation which verifies UK degrees, the Higher Education Degree Datacheck. It reports in a recent Blog that in September 2016 alone, it was instrumental in achieving the closure of seven fake Degree websites, including four purporting to be English Universities. For example, the non-existent Stafford University and University of Wolverhamton [no “p”].
But as fast as they are closed down, up pop some more. The educational diploma equivalent of “Whack-a-Mole”.
The point is I think, don’t be trusting. There are crooks about and you don’t want them in your business. Set a Notary on the trail!
And may I point out, the internet has not invented this sort of thing, just made it easier.
After the end of the USA Civil War in the 1870s and taking advantage of the chaos that the fighting had caused, (Medical Licensing was pretty much non-existent) one John Buchanan made a fortune printing and selling fake diplomas. At least he had to good grace to drown himself when he was caught. His modern equivalents make billions worldwide and when they are caught, just start again.
Ironically, it seems his activities may have been a prime cause of US Government recognition that the creation and implementation of State Regulation of physicians, and then other professions, was essential
More here on this link.
The problem is real and there is a thorny dilemma at the root of it. –
An Education cannot be an end in itself for most of us. We cannot be Monks. We cannot just study for the love of learning. We need a job and income. And increasingly, there is no job without a Degree. So for huge numbers of people around the world, it’s not the Education but the Degree Certificate, the piece of paper, which has value. And when a thing has huge value, people will take short cuts to get it.
So pass me that magnifying glass Watson, I need to check this paperwork.
How about a song?- link here I’ve Been Duped
And, as always, whenever you require any help with Notarisations and foreign legal documents, please do not hesitate to contact me or Louise Morley here at AtkinsonNotary [0113 816 0116 or http://www.atkinsonnotary.com and notary@atkinsonnotary.com] where we shall be more than happy to assist further.
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