The head of the Northern Territory public service has warned staff to “carefully verify” employee qualifications, after the anti-corruption watchdog found a public officer falsified their resume to win three high-ranking jobs.
The Commissioner for Public Employment Vicki Telfer said “integrity in recruitment [was] fundamental to ensuring the [Northern Territory Public Service] has a highly capable workforce”.
The Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC), Michael Riches, found an unnamed “public officer” falsified qualifications and engaged in corrupt conduct on three occasions.
He did not identify the person but said they had been the chief financial officer of a public body in 2013 and 2017 and the chief operating officer in 2018.
“If an applicant is unable to produce a copy of a qualification they claim to have in their resume, they are not to be progressed to the on-boarding stage,” Ms Telfer said.
I wrote about fraudulent resumes and LinkedIn sites in Smart Company some years ago.
The most common section for fraud is academic credentials.
Australian degrees or TAFE qualifications are frequently checked.
Recruiters sometimes check the chronology of the resume against the LinkedIn profile. If there are major discrepancies, that’s a red flag.
People too easily appropriate titles and therefore seniority—but that can bring them down.
Keep the resume honest. Lies are hard to remember.