Boosting your resume

Answer the questions based on your opinion.

textbook is:

Business Ethics Now (4nd Edition), Dr. Andrew W. Ghillyer. McGraw-Hill Publishing Company,

Chapter 3- Thinking Critically
“ Boosting Your Resume”

Instructions:

Step 1 — Prep Work:You will need to read the case titled, “Boosting Your Resume.” The case is in your textbook (Ghillyer Business Ethics Now), page 64 and 65.

After reading the case,answer the following questions and place your answers in the Forum section of Oncourse by Thursday night 11:55pm.

Step 2 – Group Discussion – By Saturday night at 11:55pm respond to at least one answer of three of your classmates in the Forum section of Oncourse.

BOOSTING YOUR RESUME

‘Everybody has stretched the truth a little on their resumes at one time or another, right?” That’s the question

that people who are about to give their own resumes a little boost ask themselves as a way of dealing with

the twinge of guilt they are probably feeling as they adjust their

job title or make that six months of unemployment magically dis-

appear by claiming a consulting project. In the harsh light of day. r

resume inflation is not only unethical, but if you transfer those un- . _,_ , ‘ A’ ‘ I
truths onto a job application form. which is a legal document. then

the act becomes illegal. Consider the outcomes for these former M W.
occupants of high-ranking (and high-paying) positions: I

I Marilee Jones, dean of admissions for the Massachusetts . “ A
Institute of Technology (MIT), claimed to hold degrees in biol-
ogy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Albany Medi- ” 5.‘ , 1
cal College and to hold a doctorate degree. She resigned in
April 2oo7 after officials at MIT discovered the truth. ‘~_r ~ .r A

I George O’Leary resigned just five days after being hired as i 3 p r K
Notre Dame’s football coach in 2001 when it was revealed that Former Mme Dame foams” coach Gauge 01””,
he did not hold a master’s degree in education from “NYU-

Stony Brook’ (a nonexistent institution), nor had he lettered three times as a football player for the Univer-
sity of New Hampshire (both of which he had claimed on his resume).

I Ronald Zarrella, former CEO of Bausch & Lomb, the eye care company, was required to give up $1.1 million
of a planned $1.65 million bonus when it was discovered that although he had attended New York Uni-
versity’s Stern School of Business, he had never earned the MBA that he claimed to have on his resume.
Interestingly. the board of directors of Bausch & Lomb, a company recognized by Standard & Poor’s as an
example of good corporate governance. chose not to fire Zarrella, claiming that he brought too much value
to the company and its shareholders to dismiss him.

So if the risks are so high. why do people continue to embellish the details on a document that is supposed to

accurately reflect their skills and work experience? Pressure! Getting hired by a company is a competitive process,
and you need to make the best sales pitch you can to attract the attention of the HR person assigned to screen the
applications for a particular position (or. at least, the applications that make it through the software program that
screens resumes for keywords related to the open position). In such a pressured environment, justifying an action
on the basis of an assumption that everyone else is probably doing it starts to make sense. So changing dates. job
titles. responsibilities. certifications, and/or academic degrees can now be classified as “little white lies”; but as
you can see from our three examples in this case. those little white lies can come back to haunt you.

These are the questions from the case.

1. Does the competitive pressure to get hired justify the decision to boost your résumé? Why?

2. Do you think the board of directors of Bausch & Lomb made the right decision in choosing not to fi re Zarrella? Why or why not?

3. What steps should companies take during the hiring process to ensure that such bad hires do not happen?

4. Can you polish your résumé without resorting to little white lies? Provide some examples of how you might do that.

5. Your friend has been unemployed for two years. She decides to boost her résumé by claiming to have been a consultant for those two years in order to compete in a very tough job market.

She explains thata colleague of hers did the same thing to cover a six- month period of unemployment. Does the longer period of unemployment make the decision any less unethical? Why or

why not?

6. If you discovered that a colleague at work had lied on her résumé, what would you do?

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