Working Wounded: Resume Theft

Nov. 17, 2006 — -- DEAR READERS: Just when you think you've seen it all, you get an e-mail from a reader who describes how his resume was plagiarized. I knew that people lied on resumes, I had no idea that someone would try to steal one.

Dear WORKING WOUNDED: I recently found myself in a strange situation. I'm an independent consultant in IT Security. Therefore, my resume is very accessible at the top of the searches in Yahoo and Google. As part of my job, I often get requests from clients to review resumes of prospective employees and consultants in my field. Amazingly, twice in the last month, I have been given my own resume to review with someone else's name at the top. In both cases the job duties and descriptions, even the project names, match exactly starting about 4 years ago when my niche work began. Also, the plagiarized section is typed in a different font than the rest of the resume, which leads me to the conclusion that they simply cut and pasted their resumes from mine and, most likely, from other unknown sources.

When I received the first resume from a client in Maryland, I immediately contacted my client, explained the situation, and asked them how they wanted me to handle this dilemma. My client asked me to proceed almost as planned. They wanted me to speak to the candidate, but with the intention of getting the truth or some sort of admission of plagiarism from the "author" of the resume at hand.

Nervously, I contacted the candidate. My questioning focused specifically on the work experience that we seemed to share. He was unable to speak intelligently about any of the work that he had allegedly done. So, finally, I blatantly asked him if he wrote the resume. When confronted, he eventually said that he "might" have taken a bit "from here or there." I then led him to my posted resume on the Web. Stunned silence. He then apologized profusely and swore "on the life of his child" that he would delete the portions of his resume in question.

Two weeks later, I received the second resume from a different client in Minnesota. The second case I intended to handle in the same manner as I had the first. The only real difference between the candidates was that this one happened to be from overseas. When I talked to this candidate, he and I realized that, although it was his resume I was given, it was not the one he had authored. As it turns out, the overseas technology company representing him did a common practice of swiping someone else's credentials to try and sell their consultant. I felt bad for this guy because he was unaware of what had happened.

So in the end there isn't much I can do about people plagiarizing my resume, except to hope that companies do their due diligence and fact-check their candidates. Hopefully it won't compromise my future opportunities when my resume comes into question because someone else has seen it before.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on plagiarizing resumes. E-mail me your thoughts and I'll print the best one, with full credit of course.

We'd like hear your thoughts on plagiarizing resumes. E-mail me your thoughts, and I'll print the best one, with full credit of course, and I'll give an autographed copy of "Working Wounded: Advice that adds insight to injury" (Warner, 2000) to the best submission. Send your entry, name & address via: http://workingwounded.com or via e-mail: bob@workingwounded.com. Entries must be received by Wednesday, Nov. 22.

Here are the results from a recent workingwounded.com/ABCNEWS.com online ballot:

Working Wounded/ABCNEWS.com online ballot question: What do you look for in a leader?

• Someone who is really smart, 8.7 percent
• Someone who thinks about more than their own wallet, 26 percent
• Someone who gets the job done, 27.1 percent
• Someone who tells the truth, 38 percent

Our winning strategy for working with men at work comes from C.R. in Chicago:

"Men are not all the same. But in general I've found that it's all about stroking their ego. I believe women are much better at focusing on the job. With men you've got to put energy into their ego needs. That said, it's easy because you do know what is important to them. Women are far more complicated."

Gimme a break. Whatever happened to the 40-hour workweek?

• 69 percent of Americans work 40 hours to 49 hours a week
• 18 percent of Americans work 50 hours to 59 hours
• 5 percent work more than 60 hours a week

From: Workplace Media

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, speaker and internationally syndicated columnist. His newest best-seller, "Gray Matters: The Workplace Survival Guide" (Wiley, 2004), is a business comic book that trades cynicism for solutions. Ask Bob a question: bob@workingwounded.com or http://graymattersbook.com.

This work is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.