Latest news: Students tempted to lie on CV

Rising tuition fees could convince more students to buy a fake degree and bypass university altogether. 21/06/2012

More than two-thirds (68%) of jobseekers agree that the increase in tuition fees would make buying a fake degree certificate more appealing, according to a recent survey by Graduate Prospects.

While two-thirds of students and graduates recognised that it is illegal to give misinformation on CVs, a third already knew someone who has lied or exaggerated about their qualifications on their CV.

The top four qualification lies graduates are most likely to tell:

• Grade (47%) - give a higher class than they actually achieved.
• Course completion (29%) - say they completed a course when they only finished part of it.
• Subject (13%) - give a different course subject to suit a job’s requirements.
• Qualification (11%) - say they have a degree when they don’t.

CV fraud often goes undetected, as businesses admit that background checks are time consuming and expensive. Only a fifth of large organisations check that degree certificates are genuine.

The survey was carried out as part of the development of the Higher Education Degree Datacheck (HEDD) online degree verification system. Funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)  via the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)  and supported by Universities UK, HEDD is being launched to help combat education fraud by making it simpler and quicker for employers to check candidate qualifications. It currently costs universities more than £2m annually to fulfil degree verification requests HEDD will make it easier for institutions to monitor, audit and report on enquiries. 

Mike Hill, chief executive of Graduate Prospects said, 'Through HEDD trials, we know that people are exaggerating their qualifications, but we are yet to identify what proportion is down to error and what is deliberately deceitful. We carried out this survey to shed some light on the topic.'