Hello, I have been following for quite some time the threads in this site and finally found the courage to address my concerns hoping that people might make useful suggestions. I recently received two offers from big consulting firms and I am far from being joyful due to reasons given below. I achieved a 2.1 at Uni but discouraged by the sheer dryness/automated nature of the initial screening I indicated I had a 1st in my applications. I highly doubted recruiters would stop and read my personal story explaining the strenous circumstances I had to go through while doing my degree (engineering). I have loads of extracurriculars and internship/work experience achieved without interruption of my studies. I am confident I have the right traits required in consulting and I was told I did very well throughout the interviews. Now...I fear I will be found out and offers will be withdrawn. Well, even though it is a 2.1, I still lied :(. In brief, I feel all hard work will go down the drain. Any suggestions??? I feel so dumb.

The situation isn't too rosy. Firms generally take a very dim view on falsifying credentials, and most will withdraw an offer on that basis.You have three options: first, you can come clean. This is unlikely to win you much sympathy, and will probably end in the offer being withdrawn.Second, you can lie. Ethics aside, this strategy is also unlikely to be successful. Most employers insist on seeing a copy of your degree certificate, particularly at graduate level.Third, you can embark on some "damage control" by withdrawing your applications. This would leave you able to apply to the organisations again in the future. If you're caught out lying, you're likely to be blacklisted from the organisations in question permanently.The only possible work-around I can think of is explaining that you applied on the basis of an expected degree, but didn't achieve the expected mark. This strategy clearly works better if you applied in May and graduated in June. If, however, you graduated in June but are applying for jobs in January, the excuse doesn't hold water.At the risk of telling you something you already know, you've made a poor decision by lying on your CV. Your best bet now is damage limitation. A 2:1 is good enough to get through the door, and doesn't need a lot of explanation or mitigation.

You're a liar and you have probably taken a place away from someone who isn't a liar. The very fact you are even considering progressing means I doubt the integrity of your conscience. If you are found out, the offer WILL be withdrawn. I hope they find you out.

Some harsh comments above -get off your high horses- how many of you HAVE NOT lied on your CV's - saving seals in Alaska, or finding the cure for cancer in my spare time - come on we all hype oursleves up. The only mistake you have made is that you have hyped up somethign that can be proven, rather than talked around. My suggestion is to do nothing, wait for them to ask for your degree certificate, and if HR is actually clever enought to check, then say ou must have ebtered 1st by accident - esp if its one of the scroll down options on an electronic form - its easy enough to do. Just say you made a mistake and there would have been no point lying - since you got a 2:1 which is good enough anyway. I know more lies seem to be the cowards way out, but really once you're in no-one gives a monkeys what degree you got from where. I think you have been made to suffer enough with your own conscience, and im sure youre nevergonna put yourslef in that position again - move on.

I, for one, can continue to sit on my high horse. My CV represents my professional experience and points out the highlights of my career (and carefully leaves out the less glamorous bits).There is a world of difference between presenting your experience in the best light and outright lying about your qualifications. One is "marketing". The other is "fraud".I'm sorry if you can't see that.

Yep - you're potentially f-cked all right. They will check without doubt, however I would let the process run and see what happens. I would guess that they will ask for a copy of your degree, once received, they potentially may overlook it as a 2:1 is generally good enough. My guess is that they simply screen all certificates and pull up anyone that has a 2:2 or below.Telling the truth - Poor choice - they will just pull the offerLying further - Nope - Will just get you more in the shi£ if you get caughtLetting it run and then doing some damage limitation if you are caught - only real optionBest of luck – hope you get away with it.

Completely agree Village Idiot. I have never lied on my CV, and lying about your degree result is shameful, fraudulent, scandalous and pathetic. Even if HR find out now, you will run the risk of this coming out years down the line and affecting whatever career you build up at these companies. It's not a question about high horses. It's about professional standards and integrity.

I find myself agreeing with VI and Marakon. Of course, Marakon's presentation of the argument is a bit harsh, but at the end of the day, deliberate misrepresentation is unethical and the truth will probably out.

I think you should pull out of applications where you have stated 1st rather than 2:1, although it would do you less harm if you do not give the real reason when doing this. A 2:1 is a decent result. You are mad to want to live a lie like that, when you dont need to. It also has significant legal implications which could end up costing you dearly later on. Its not like saying you were saving seals when you were actually seal spotting on a boat in your year off.You clearly lied and you feel bad about it due to your conscience. Do the decent thing before its too late. I shadowed a lawyer once as I was not sure what career I wanted.One of the cases was a woman who had pretended to have a degree (from my university actually). She sat on numerous influential committees and had put forward her CV for a non-executive part-time role. She was found out and her career was in tatters.

Many thanks for all feedback. I think it is not worth the stressing out I have been doing recently. I have other options under my belt. Will refuse the offers. Just one little comment: I am not generally a liar and I did not lie on other things in my CV. I guess I was discouraged by the way applications are considered in these big firms prior to getting an interview. And also, I doubt I took the place someone else deserved. If one has the right combination of features they are looking for, they will get through.

If you get away with it you'll probably end up paranoid and guilty for a long long time - not good!Withdraw the applications stating personal reasons (which is true) then re-apply at a later date telling the truth!Good luck

Stressed out, You have made a mistake, you've clearly learned your lesson. We have all felt that crushing feeling in the chest at the thought of being found out about something and our worlds coming crashing down.If they don't ask to see physical certificates they will certainly check your credentials agains the national register.Withdraw your applications or simply, and graciously, turn down the offers; if you're not interested in joining, the firms will not really care why.Go away and do something interesting and if you still fancy it reapply in the next round.There are some great points above about highlighting your best bits as opposed to making them up. Take heed of the wisdom!Good luck!

Oh dear. What a quandry.Most people exaggerate their CVs, but lies about verifiable facts are difficult to defend when challenged.I don't like the fact that you have lied; however, I empathise with your situation and have some ideas for you. I'm not making any moral judgments here. What you ultimately choose to do is your decision.1. They might not check up on it anyway. But, you will always have this 'worry' looming over you. However, once you change jobs after a year or two, it no longer becomes an issue. You really do wash your hands clean and have a new start so to speak. So, you could just take the job and keep your fingers crossed. Why not research which companies are likely to check grades, and then withdraw from these but continue with the others that have made you an offer?2. Can you say it was an 'expected grade'?3. Focus on the degree, not the grade. If they want proof of your degree, see if you can get something official that shows you have the degree but doesn't actually list the grade.4. Continue applying for other jobs. See if you can get another job whilst telling the truth. Then just withdraw from the others. Or alternatively, instead of going straight to withdrawing, tell them the correct grade and grovel with some kind of excuse. There doesn't seem to be much to lose in this situation - after all, what can they do, withdraw the offer?!5. If you do take the offer and suspect the worse case scenario is going to happen, use delay tactics and start looking for a new job pronto!!Above all, please learn from this experience and don't ever lie again! (and that includes whilst you're trying to worm your way out of this situation).

hi bingowhat is this national register of which you speak?

I work for Experian and we have recently launched a product which does exactly that. http://www.backgroundchecking.com/

There is a national register of higher education qualifications - similar to the Equifax register for credit history. The system was set up by higher education institutions to stop fraudulant access to courses such as MBA's and MA's and access is now sold to employers.My HR contact told me about it when I couldn't find my post grad certs.The walls have ears and all that!

frightening... how on earth do they get all that info about who you worked for, when, etc? is there any way i can find out what info they hold about me? i don't really want to pay for the info though.

It is worrying as there are so many errors in those types of systems. When I was younger I thought that they were error free, and that complaints were from whingers. I wont bore you with the type of genuine errors that I've had to uncover (watch Watchdog - they put a better case than me), suffice to say that they are numerous and often a result of maladministration.It is sad that CV's are sifted only by criteria like 1st or 2i, without looking at the whole picture. It does seem to happen alot these days. 'I'm in a meeting', 'I'm on holiday' etc. etc.' Why cant they be honest and admit they are jobsworths!'"Look at a whole CV? You must be having a laugh. I'd miss my tea break if I did that.""Anyway that would mean working out where they attained their degrees and I could never find time to do that!" I do not condone a lie, but it would be nice to see more recruiters avoiding the tacky approach to recruitment that inadvertently helps to provoke this type of occurrence.Afterall they might find they hire better candidates and save time for another cup of tea.

Thank you for your honest and instructive answer anon. Your point 4 is the one I am actually seriously considering (and I was not trying to worm myself out of this situation - you are a sharp one, I have to say:)) Again, thanks for all constructive feedback to all.Other than the lessons I had to learn, I hope this thread also triggers some critical viewing of the way recruitment processes are organized these days. Well...with the thousands of applicants they receive, they inevitably end up looking at just numbers. It is kind of depressing. I have to go through this type of trash before getting at some more advanced stage in my career.

Everyone lies. The partner I work for does not have A levels. Just hand in your degree. The girls in HR wont check that it is a first. They will just check that it is a 2:1 or above.

? but if they check it's 2:1 +, surely they'll find out it's not a 1st???can I therefore bump my 2:2 up?

Despite the holier-than-thou postings by some buffoons here, presumably not long out of university, from many years of experience I would point out that most people in MC (and elsewhere) have lied on their CVs at some time, if not mostly. It became the norm (at the very least to embellish experience) and so if you did not do it also, going with the crowd, you were at a severe and unreal disadvantage in competitive situations. That is the ubiquitous problem with reality in this depraved world! Most of all you will find the guys at the very top have no formal qualifications at all in many cases and few qualifications of any real significance in most of the rest, and even then they are in totally inapproriate disciplines (like an "accountant" with only a first degree in scuba-diving)! I have worked through many, many years, and throughout made claims both in terms of experience and formal qualifications, from time-to-time somewhat embellished, to perhaps understate the position. Over all of these years I was never asked even to produce any of my formal certificates, except on one occasion when I needed a visa and a permit for work abroad. Even then there was no problem and they accepted the situation completely without question. The self-righteous position of some posters hereon is typical in my experience of many of those now recruiting, where they themselves have no significant formal qualifications, or at best only a first degree in a completely unrelated or inappropriate discipline. They are the worst kind at wanting to check potential applicant's formal qualifications to absurd levels of (often invalid) verification, solely because they know that they have embellished their own CVs so greatly to get where they are and because, above all else, they are very conscious of their own real inadequacies. In any case, as mentioned hereon earlier, the IT-based qualification and experience-checking systems are riddled with errors themselves, due to suspect and downright erroneous information being entered into them. They are therefore no firm authority on what qualifications and experience any candidate actually has, and no-one but a fool would use their results as the truth and nothing but the truth! So, if I were you, I would stick to your guns, and if challenged I would state that there is clearly an error in the records, and the particular degree grade is not significant in any case as to whether you could do the job well. Probably your transcript is more important in reality. After all "2.1"/"1" - the only difference is the addition or omission of a two. This is typical of the types of data errors in the records in these systems, due to data input errors. Just stick it out and you will survive, but do not claim a 1st for this application from hereon. If they do start nit-picking about the exact grade of degree I would suggest it is not the type of employer you should work for, since that is indicative of a pathetic ethos and structure in which you would have no future; it would indicate that their eye is not on the ball of reality, if they rejected you only for having a 2.1 instead of 1st despite all of your other attributes!

It is really great to notice that there is people out there who have a grasp firm of reality. Thank you for your frank suggestions Danny! I am not the kind that reveals family history in job applications to make up for believed under-perfomance. It was a silly shortcut to enable me to get through- I agree. It was not worth the stress it caused, sincerely. Lost my sleep these days. What can I say, we live in a society in which governments go about lying blatantly without any remorse. Sometimes individuals are tempted to adopt similar approaches even though of a much smaller scale. Not a good example to follow but after all I did work my ass keeping up two jobs while in university and preparing like hell for the interviews. Oh, well!

Danny,The issue isn't whether the original poster is qualified or not. It is the fact that the poster deliberately lied on his CV. In a Big 4 environment where there is regulatory scrutiny and ethics & independence requirements, it is all the more important to appear "whiter than white".In my firm, someone found deliberately falsifying their qualifications would be deemed guilty of gross misconduct and dismissed.At my firm, all technical staff need to provide evidence of their qualifications (educational + professional), their right to work in the UK, and police certification that they have no previous police cautions or convictions. They must also certify that they do not hold prohibited shareholdings, and must disclose any other jobs or directorships they hold outside their primary role. Lying about any of these is a very serious matter.And no, Danny, I'm not straight out of university. I am an experienced consultant who makes hiring decisions.

Danny Many Dany Many Dany MannDandamadama!Did you just not read the thread before you delivered your tome? Getting away with it is not a career strategy.

We have several issues here but only one thread. It is understandably something of a concern to the consulting industry. But should we believe it?- It might have been put here as some sort of a stunt to attack people with firsts. - It might have been an extremely short-termist, if seemingly pragmatic, overreaction to a business world that can seem a bit crazy sometimes.- It might have been put here for another purpose. However people should avoid bringing legalistic matters onto forum in this way too much. Personally I have no wish to find out the truth on this thread right now, and if I never do that would not be too late. It appears to me at least that this question has been answered, so far as is it is reasonable to expect us to.q:-)

hardhat, what are you on about?

I think someone has been at the departure lounge bar too early....

Oops, was it that hard to interpret?Essentially my opinion on this is that it might seem appealing to tell a lie initially, but it is obviously not a good move in the long run.There is a legal dimension, for example, as it is fraudulent. I would imagine it is impossible to successfully defend a case like the above in court. VI you sensibly made the legal point early on I know, but with 29+ messages in the thread it might have got under-emphasised.Honesty on a matter like this should not be overlooked. It cannot be fully rationalised by planning consulting career scenarios because it is fundamentally wrong and it is therefore not an option. For example if a question like this had been put on a law forum you would get much more emphasis on the fact that it is contrary to the law rather than bad industry practice.I also could not help wondering whether there was some kind of hidden agenda to why someone would post this thread, due to the recurrence of this issue about lies which I do not remember being such a hot topic years ago. It was either posted for the reasons stated (because they told the lie as stated) or for another reason (in which case they are still a liar!). I'm afraid when somebody cannot be trusted I do not always give them my full attention. Most consultants have a natural aversion to lies. I'd really recommend doing what you can to rectify the above mistake 'Stressed Out', ASAP, if you have not already done so. P.S. Very amusing HNN ! but dare I say it, sadly an untruth of a very different kind!

Hardhat, I daresay you had a point in there somewhere. But darling, you really must look into the way you express yourself. You may be following your train of thought, but blow me down if your sentence structure doesn't derail the rest of us.

i told a massive pork pie on my application 15 years ago - 2 'O' levels ...say no more...still fully employed. I had no scruples then.