Page navigation

Are you vulnerable to degree fraud?

February 2018

Degree fraud is a boom industry yet most employers don't check the authenticity of candidates' certificates. The good news is that if more employers take a few simple steps, the fraudsters can quickly be put out of business

'Dr' Jon Andrewes and Conrad de Souza invented impressive degree qualifications and secured high-paying, high-flying positions in the NHS.

Julia Rawlinson forged a degree certificate in order to get a teaching job she wasn't qualified for.

Wade Jordan, meanwhile, secured an HR role at a Manchester biotech firm thanks to a non-existent MA in Human Resource Management.

They all went to prison after their counterfeit careers collapsed.

If every employer checked the authenticity of every candidate's academic credentials, degree and CV fraud would vanish overnight.

Just 20% of employers perform this simple yet essential task.1 The lack of a comprehensive verification culture creates a void into which pours a torrent of fake university websites, forged certificates and CV fraud.

Few graduates know that CV fraud can lead to a jail sentence

When degree fraud hits the headlines, it is usually the high-end instances that eat up the column inches. But for every Scott Thompson, the Yahoo chief executive who didn't actually have the degree in computer science that helped him get the job in the first place, there is a graduate quietly embellishing their CV.

The formula is predictable. 'My 2:2 doesn’t sound impressive. I'll say I've got a 2:1. Everyone does it. No one will check.'

The truth is, not everyone is doing it and somebody may well check.

Download the HEDD toolkit for HE providers

Advice and guidance on degree fraud for providers

  • File type
    PDF
  • Number of pages in document
    8  pages
  • File size
    4.01 MB

Download the HEDD toolkit for HE providers

Download PDF file Advice and guidance on degree fraud for providers

What may be a tempting tactic in pursuit of a job that may otherwise be out of reach can have disastrous consequences. Few graduates know that CV fraud can actually lead to a jail sentence. As the Cifas campaign targeted at students and graduates aptly puts it, 'Don't finish your career before it begins.'

The great majority of graduates, of course, wouldn't dream of falsifying their degree grade, buying a fake CV online or passing themselves off as a graduate of a made-up university.

But they can still be affected by degree fraud.

Graduates invest heavily in their employability. What a pity, then, that the genuine graduate in possession of a real degree qualification loses out on a job to a candidate with a fake version of that certificate or even a qualification from Chelsea University, Hashford London University, Ashbourne University or any one of the hundreds of fake university websites.

For employers, lack of awareness of the UK university system is part of the problem.

The further away from the UK the employer is, the more likely they are to be fooled by a bogus university or dodgy certificate. Recruiters in Brunei, Bolivia or Burundi, for example, do not always have the working knowledge of the UK higher education system to know instinctively what is and what isn’t a legitimate degree-awarding body.

The pseudo-English aesthetics of fake university websites and the florid language and ornate typefaces of fake certificates combine to create sufficient spurious credibility to con the unwary recruiter.

A degree certificate from Manchester University or Surrey University may look the part. But there are no such institutions - it's The University of Manchester and the University of Surrey.

The University of Wolverhamton degree certificate is an impressive document, until a closer inspection spots the missing 'p' in Wolverhamton.

The solution for employers is straightforward. Don't take a degree certificate at face value. Always check its authenticity.

If you are not sure about the provenance of a certificate, check the database of degree-awarding bodies at Hedd.

A candidate might present a degree certificate awarded by Bell College of Technology or Hatfield Polytechnic.

There is no reason why these names should resonate but a quick check on Hedd would show that both were degree-awarding institutions until they became, respectively, part of the University of the West of Scotland (or Paisley University, as it was at the time) in 2007 and the University of Hertfordshire in 1992.

Hedd is the UK higher education system's official candidate verification service. It directs verification enquiries to more than 100 universities.

In addition, Hedd operates a degree fraud reporting service on behalf of the Department for Education.

Increased media coverage is raising awareness about the risks posed by degree fraud. Hedd featured in recent editions of File on Four and the Victoria Derbyshire programme. More and more employers are starting to check their applicants' degree credentials.

Degree fraud toolkit

No employer needs to be a victim of degree fraud. The Hedd degree fraud toolkit explains how to put in place robust anti-degree fraud policies and processes. No HR department is complete without a copy of the toolkit.

Here are our top tips:

  1. Have a published policy on application fraud.
  2. Tell job applicants you always check qualifications. This can be a deterrent.
  3. Don't take certificates at face value. Verify the claims directly with the awarding body and trust the data, not the paper.
  4. Take action against fraud - zero tolerance.

The golden rule is: always make the check.

Notes

1 Hedd research, 2016.

Get insights in your inbox!

Related articles

Loading articles...

{{article.data.article_title.value.text}}
{{article.data.page_title.value.text}}

{{article.data.article_title.value.text}}

{{article.data.author.linkedDocumentContent.full_name.value.text}}

{{article.date}}

This article is tagged with:

Event: {{article.data.page_title.value.text}}

{{article.data.city.value}}

{{article.date}}

This event is tagged with:

Loading articles...