INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A couple of years ago, the cofounder and CEO of a blood-testing company was publicly taken to task for implying in articles and professional
profiles that he has a PhD when in reality, he&d left a prestigious graduate group three years after enrolling, without a degree.
The CEO is
hardly alone in intentionally or otherwise sowing confusion around his credentials, however
Over the years, we&ve mistakenly believed that a number of founders have obtained specific college degrees based on their LinkedIn bio,
only to learn offline that they enrolled for some period of time in a particular program that they didn&t complete.
It happened most
recently with the cofounder of a startup who one would might surmise based on his LinkedIn profile has a master degree from Harvard but does
We also misunderstood the CEO of a robotics company to have a PhD based on her LinkedIn
It was our fault; it mentioned under the credit that she&d left to start a company
But anyone scanning the site might have come to the same wrong conclusion
(We pointed this out to her team, and mention of the PhD was deleted.)
In a higher-profile case, James Damore, the fired Google engineer who
authored that infamous memo about the company diversity practices and whose LinkedIn page cited under &Education& a &PhD, Systems Biology,&
removed mention of those doctoral studies after Wired confirmed with Harvard that he was enrolled in the program but didn&t complete the
doctorate.
Damore tried to defend his own LinkedIn profile, tweeting at the time, &I never told anyone I have a PhD
LinkedIn can&t distinguish between being in the PhD program and having a PhD (I forgot to update it).&
Though few on Twitter found him
credible, he wasn&t mistaken on this front
In creating a profile on LinkedIn, the choices one is given are to a.) list a completed degree and leave off anything partially completed,
no matter how much time was invested in a program (or minuscule its acceptance rate) or b.) list an incomplete degree without a clear way of
explaining that it no longer being pursued or whether it will ever be obtained.
LinkedIn doesn&t view the issue as its fault
Asked whether LinkedIn members might be posting incomplete degrees because of the company user interface, a spokesperson emailed us today,
writing that LinkedIn user agreement and &professional community policy& guidelines are &clear that members should provide factual
information about themselves on LinkedIn.&
Added this person: &People should definitely add their education details to their LinkedIn
The education section includes ‘Start Year& and ‘End Year (or expected)& fields
If a member has a partial degree, we recommend they clearly state the status of their degree within the ‘Degree& and/or ‘Description&
fields.&
Still, that &description& field isn&t easy to find
And why LinkedIn — which has more than 600 million users — hasn&t added fields for partially completed degrees is a bit of a mystery,
particularly given that so many people drop out.
Cynically we will note that LinkedIn makes a lot of its revenue off recruitment services
Before it was acquired by Microsoft, and the companies& financials were consolidated, 65 percent of LinkedIn revenue came from recruitment
And often the more distinguished the degree, the more people will pay to associate themselves with the ostensible degree holder
(LinkedIn itself strongly encourages loading up one profile with education-related details, saying these attract &11x& more profile
views.)
A much bigger factor, however, is human nature, argues Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, a renowned professor at Stanford Graduate
School of Business who has written extensively about organization theory
Asked if he has reason to think that more students are listing incomplete degrees on LinkedIn — or even dropping out of school with less
compunction, knowing they might — he points us to numbers published in 2001 by the payroll and benefits managing company ADP.
What they
show: of 2.6 million background checks that the company performed that year, 44 percent of applicants were discovered to have lied about
their work histories, 41 percent lied about their education, and 23 percent falsified credentials or licenses.
&People lie about everything
all the time,& says Pfeffer
&I&m not sure that it any worse now than it was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago.&
It something recruiters anticipate, he says
He recalls a conversation with a top executive from the search giant Heidrick - Struggles, who Pfeffer had interviewed for one of the many
&He said to me, ‘So many people make up credentials that we no longer use fudged credentials as a reason to disqualify a candidate.& He
said recruiters will correct what they find wrong with someone resume
But he said if they used exaggerated — even made-up — credentials as a reason to disqualify people, they would never have enough
candidates.&
LinkedIn limited menu of options may give more cover to people
But Pfeffer cautions not to assign the company too much blame, no matter its reach
It a little like shooting the messenger, he suggests
&Sure, LinkedIn could play some role
But they could change the way they operate tomorrow, and people would still find a way to make themselves look more accomplished than they
We&d rather see some changes to find out.
