Almost all employers across the globe face the issue of potential employees faking their credentials. These could be academic credentials, work experience related credentials, and performance related credentials. How many of us would normally expect that professionals who have been faking credentials would reach to the level of CxO – specially for one of the leading and most visible Internet companies.
The Case of Scott Thompson, CEO , Yahoo Inc.
By now, you would already have heard of the case of Yahoo Inc.’s recently (about 4 months back) appointed CEO – Scott Thompson – having fake credentials in his resume. His profile had a mention of a degree in computer science, which he never received. It was reported in a filing by a hedge fund investor that – Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson did not have a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stonehill College near Boston as the company had mentioned in the regulatory documents. Another interesting fact – Stonehill College had not been offering computer science degrees until four years after Thompson graduated. It would have been real easy to validate this part had some one tried to do some research earlier.
Well its difficult to digest the story , specially when you look at Scotts profile – he has been the President of PayPal, and prior to that he was a senior VP and CTO at PayPal. He had earlier worked as executive VP at Inovant, and before that he was CIO at Barclay’s Global Investors. Thompson has been one of the respected and highly visible professionals. All this possibly enabling him clear the search committee’s expectations at Yahoo Inc. He had easily worked his way to the top, and possibly could prove himself as a successful business leader but how many of his team members and employees can handle an unethical professional as a CEO and business leader.
The issue was raised earlier this week by investor Daniel Loeb, chief executive of hedge fund Third Point, which holds 5.8 per cent of Yahoo’s shares – with a demand of the executives resignation.
Are apologies enough in this case ?
It is now reported that Scott Thompson, has sent a memo to the employees with apologies about his conduct – “I want you to know how deeply I regret how this issue has affected the company and all of you,”. Though he has apologized and accepted the “error” on his part he possibly would not justify “being fired” for unethical conduct.
Now going forward – we need to see the response of Yahoo! board on the case. If the company decides to carry on with Scott, it can really send a wrong signal to its employees, the investor community as well as the overall industry. While not having a degree can not be said to be a problem, but a deliberate wrong filing and misrepresentation would go against any policy on clean and ethical conduct.
Some questions for business leaders and HR professionals:
- How would you treat such a case in your own business ?
- What do you do in your company to ensure such hiring’s don’t happen ?
- Do you think some senior professionals , CxOs , Heads in your company have shown fake experience and fake degrees ?
You are welcome to share your thoughts through comments or you can send us an email at share@hiringsquare.com