Job Discussion Forums

[80daze]

My company needed a body fast and hired someone who basically lied about their whole CV.

The person said they had over ten years teaching experience,a TEFL certificate, a masters in TESOL from a British university and a degree in English from an American University.

It has now been found that everything was fake! He/She photo-shopped their degrees, their TEFL certificate is made up, he/she knows nothing about teaching and freezes in the classroom.

Net result - after 4 weeks the person in question has been fired! all pay has been withheld, visa has been canceled and they now have X amount of days to get out of the country.

When asked what the hell they thought they we're doing? the answer was " I thought I could get away with it!"

There is no doubt that my school should have done more to check before hiring this person. The owner has ripped into my DOS for this.

I can understand someone who adds a little spice to their CV but to fake everything?

[denise]

I'm not sure who is dumber in this situation--the teacher for thinking he/she could get away with it (sure, a life-long con artist probably could--they'd have the charm and charisma to be able to cope without freezing up in the classroom) or whoever it was who conducted the interview, if there was one, for not figuring out that this person had no clue how to teach.

Amazing.

d

[coledavis]

I'm a little surprised, given his claim of 10 years teaching experience, that nobody approached any employers as referees.

[naturegirl321]

[scooby doo]

Not too surprised either. Sometimes it takes an extreme experience like the one described to realize how crucial it is to contact an applicant's references. That poor DoS obviously learned his lesson the hard way and I'm sure he'll be more careful in the future. A lot of 'good' reference letters are not as good as they seem so it's a not a bad idea to contact the referee to determine whether they are indeed happy to vouch for this person or just wrote the reference out of obligation.

This happened to me too. Once, when I finally confronted a teacher who lied about his experience on his CV (he had references but I didn't check) and during interviews, his defense was "didn't you know that I wasn't qualified for this?'

Unfortunately, in many cases people do get away with it.

Now, I won't even hire a cleaning boy without a reference from a previous employer! The amount of trouble it can save!

[Glenski]

[JZer]

[JZer]

[johnslat]

Dear JZer,

True - but being able to provide references, especially when many employers require them is a lot better than not having any.
And some (though probably not all) referees are at least somewhat hesitant to supply a "glowing reference" for an employee who was terrible.
After all, one's reputation is on the line.

Regards,
John

[JZer]

[basiltherat]

[Chancellor]

It really doesn't take much to e-mail directly to the references a standardized form to complete.

[JZer]

If employers use that method, people will start using real names but giving fact email accounts so they can answer the questions themselves.

[Sashadroogie]

It's pretty easy to verify most references. However, even failing that, a basic telephone interview should be able to yield basic information along the lines of 'is this guy a con-artist or a basically competent teacher?'

All you need to do is check 'em out. Really, no excuse for being hoodwinked.

Basic.

[80daze]