The Situation: You have the power to hire and/or fire people. You hire a guy for a job- not anything life or death, like chemistry or medicine or law or nuclear physics or anything. His résumé looks good, but not spectacular. Good college, adequate experience, etc.
So you hire him. He works for you and does a great job, doesn’t cause any trouble or anything, and he’s generally a good employee.
Until the day you find out his résumé is bullshit from top to bottom. He doesn’t have near the experience he claims; he didn’t go to a good college (he even got his degree in another field), etc.
But he’s a good employee.
So here’s the deal: do you fire him, for lying. Or do you let it go, because he’s a good employee?
Why would you fire a good employee?
I don’t like the situation, and wouldn’t say that the end justified the means, but if the guy does his job well, what does it matter? If you really want to get square, when he leaves you write him a glowing reference that puts paid to any chance of lying on his future resumes.
I would demand to know why he misrepresented himself, but if the reason was acceptable and he was a good employee, I’d probably keep him. But I’d also keep an eye on him. An employee who will lie on his resume could lie about anything.
I would tend to have a ‘talk’ with said employee about the whys and wherefores of their indiscretion, my response would be dependent on how he talk went.
Just out of curiosity how did you find out at this stage the résumé was not completely accurate, and did his reference checks confirm the résumé?
PS Would you have hired him from with an accurate résumé? If not you may want to review your hiring procedure, good staff can be damn hard to find.
If said employee was a good enough liar to fool you with the resume then he is probably a good enough bullshitter to have you thinking that he is a good employee when he isn’t. Unless the “inaccuracy” was very minor, I’d fire him. I have a very low tolerance for dishonesty.
‘The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes the crooked paths will be found out.’ * Proverbs 10:9
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.’ * Matthew 5:19
I would agree with Britt (I would tend to have a ‘talk’ with said employee about the whys and wherefores of their indiscretion, my response would be dependent on how the talk went.) , but with the above in mind.
The OP states that this situation is “not anything life or death, like chemistry or medicine or law or nuclear physics or anything.” So what? Are you worried about the life or death of your business? You should be, if you’re in the position of hiring and firing people.
I would fire this person with neither hesitation nor compunction, provided that the organization had at some point required him to certify the truthfulness of all information he had provided to us in applying for the job (this is usually at the bottom of a job application, where you have to sign, but it can be in contracts, employment offer acceptance forms, etc.). If there were no such certification in hand, there would be precious little grounds for dismissal. But given that he had made such certification, he is now in the situation of having signed his own pink slip.
The simple situation here is one of somebody lying to get a job. If you allow one person to get away with this, next time it will be a bad employee who did it, and when you fire them, they will sue on grounds of discrimination because you didn’t enforce your policy for the first employee.
Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
