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Do what it takes to get a job if you can. If you are doing well, and they fire you for an application reason, look at it that you wouldn't have even gotten the time, money, and experience you did in the first place if you told everything real on the application. We have all seen job ads for simple, basic jobs with an absolutely insane over the top list of experience and education wanted. These ads are designed to weed out the idiots, or avoid EEOC lawsuits, so if you want one of these jobs and know you can do it, then be creative....but at least be smart about it.
Yes. This happened at my company a few years ago. They hired a young woman as a Staff Accountant in February. When she applied, she said she had an accounting degree. She didn't have a degree. She was 6 credits short and was taking those courses at night and was going to graduate in May. They found out that she didn't have a degree in April and fired her. She was doing well too. The sad part is that if she had just told the truth, told them that she was 6 credits short of having her degree and she was taking those courses at night and it didn't interfere with her work schedule, and she would be graduating in May, they very likely would have still hired her.
The employer must apply their policy in every instance where they find a material misstatement of qualifications or work history.
I think that should be a key point. Obviously someone who fudges their educational attainment, exaggerates their work dates/duties/etc. to appear more qualified, etc. can and should get the "fired no matter when discovered" treatment.
What some are trying to rebuff here are situations like (all legal issues are from a U.S. perspective):
1. Cases where the applicant gave a "false" answer in order to avoid divulging a legally protected status (there have even been cases where a court ruled in favor of the fired employee, or at least required the employer provide an element of materiality to uphold the firing - if you're curious I'll dig up and provide links that I've seen before).
2. When an employer goes "fishing" through applications to find an excuse to illegally discriminate (maybe even something as simple as an unintentional typo).
3. Not as egregious as the other examples, but as others have said for example not disclosing a firing from when you were in high school when applying for a job when you're middle-aged, especially if that's beyond the time frame the employer asks for previous employment.
I don't have immediate links, but I'll give some examples of #1 in the last post that I've seen:
A "union salt" (someone who applies for a job at a non-union place to try and convert it to a unionized workplace, and upheld as a protected activity under the NLRA) gave the reason he left the job he had before he became a "salt" as being laid off. The employer fired him for "lying" on his application, and the court sided with the fired employee - the reasoning being that he was not under an obligation to disclose his union salting activity and he ultimately did not leave for a reason that they could legally disqualify him for.
A transgender applicant listed their name as their chosen (but not yet legal) name on the application (to avoid outing themselves at the "first impression" point). When it got to the point where it was actually necessary for the employer to know their legal name (in this case a background check after a conditional offer) it was then provided. The employer withdrew the offer on the basis that the name on the original application was "false" - but the court ruled that transgender status (effectively communicated by the "deadname") warrants a heightened degree of confidentiality (c.f. someone using a false name for a fraudulent purpose). Since the employer had no material reason for needing the deadname before the background check (or their transgender status at any point) the court ruled in favor of the trans person.
An employer asked a question touching the subject of disabilities that was in violation of ADA.
I should mention a caveat with all of these: The court-sanctioned "license to lie" applies ONLY to the data that would be indicative of a protected status, and even then only if the employer cannot substantiate a material (and legally permissible) reason for needing to know it. If one of these applicants had lied about any of the usual items that would not divulge anything protected then the terminations/withdrawals would've been upheld (as long as they're acting in a non-discriminatory matter - if not and they're just trying to find an excuse to discriminate then #2 in my last post would apply). This indeed ending up being the case for that particular union salt - he had an inadequate driving record for a position that required driving on the job.
PS about the "union salter" in the last post: I found that a later ruling (involving a different case) said that "union salting" is protected only if one is genuinely interested in the job and not just applying to try and unionize the workplace without actually wanting the job. Nonetheless, the principle in that earlier court ruling which implied that information indicative of a protected status should be held to a different standard than lies that do not encroach on anything protected (i.e. must be material rather than a simple "honesty test") should still apply.
Absolutely. Several years ago, I fired someone for neglecting to mention that he had been convicted of 2nd degree murder something like 15 or 17 years earlier. A rather significant oversight. How the hell that got past the HR background check, I'll never know, because when it hit the fan all further discussions on the matter were closely guarded and held even above my head. But I do know that internal discussions were held, and some of those were loud; I at least heard that much.
And I never would have found out about it if it weren't the fact that a few years after he joined us, he recommended his cousin to come work for us. See, the first guy had been hired before I took over the department. Since I tend to be the thorough type, when I came onboard I immediately adopted the practice of doing my own superficial check on all applicants, using google, social media, etc. When I checked out the existing employee's cousin, I found an old newspaper article from the early 2000s about this new applicant being an accessory to a murder in a cocaine deal. Obviously that was a lot more exciting than I was expecting, and I read the article very thoroughly, so I could accurately share the details with my own supervisor.
Imagine my initial surprise, then shock, then downright horror when I got to the part of the article where they listed the other people involved in the crime - including the first guy, the one who was already working for us. He wasn't the shooter, but he had a significant role in planning the killing, and a murder conviction is a murder conviction. I dialed the phone so fast I practically sprained my index finger, and the guy was terminated and off company property in something like 45 minutes.
Absolutely. Several years ago, I fired someone for neglecting to mention that he had been convicted of 2nd degree murder something like 15 or 17 years earlier. A rather significant oversight. How the hell that got past the HR background check, I'll never know, because when it hit the fan all further discussions on the matter were closely guarded and held even above my head. But I do know that internal discussions were held, and some of those were loud; I at least heard that much.
And I never would have found out about it if it weren't the fact that a few years after he joined us, he recommended his cousin to come work for us. See, the first guy had been hired before I took over the department. Since I tend to be the thorough type, when I came onboard I immediately adopted the practice of doing my own superficial check on all applicants, using google, social media, etc. When I checked out the existing employee's cousin, I found an old newspaper article from the early 2000s about this new applicant being an accessory to a murder in a cocaine deal. Obviously that was a lot more exciting than I was expecting, and I read the article very thoroughly, so I could accurately share the details with my own supervisor.
Imagine my initial surprise, then shock, then downright horror when I got to the part of the article where they listed the other people involved in the crime - including the first guy, the one who was already working for us. He wasn't the shooter, but he had a significant role in planning the killing, and a murder conviction is a murder conviction. I dialed the phone so fast I practically sprained my index finger, and the guy was terminated and off company property in something like 45 minutes.
What kind of work was he doing that you felt it necessary to fire him after several years of apparent good work after paying his debt to society? I'm trying to figure out if he was a danger or if you were a jerk.
What kind of work was he doing that you felt it necessary to fire him after several years of apparent good work after paying his debt to society? I'm trying to figure out if he was a danger or if you were a jerk.
Hmm... Any workplace would be inappropriate to employ a convicted murderer. Think about the unsuspecting co-workers. Their lives are potentially endangered just by working with this dude.
"Paying debt to society" is a not that simple. He has completed his sentence for one particular crime. Still a convicted murderer. Once a felon, always a felon. This is why governments keep criminal records.
Would you want, for example, a holocaust camp guard working with you, even if he "did his time" after the war?
Yes, I’ve seen this occur. Credentials were usually misrepresented.
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