It’s tough at the top. It’s even tougher when ethics and
integrity are called into question.
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| Former Yahoo! CEO Thompson. (Yodel Anecdotal/Yahoo! Inc.) |
A ‘missed’ inaccuracy on a resume continues to worsen the
reputation of top executives the world over and placed them at the front of the
bashing line. Some of the ire is seemingly deserved.
Accountability and integrity matter, not just
at the C-level, but on every level.
A recent article
by Business Insider writer Nicholas
Carlson speaks of how former Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson, although not naming the
recruitment firm directly, threw the company that got him hired, first at eBay
and then at Yahoo!, ‘under the bus’ while explaining inaccuracies on his
resume. Carlson notes that Thompson took some of the blame, but ultimately, in
my opinion he should have stepped up and taken all of the blame.
Here’s why.
In the IT recruitment game, resumes are often reformatted
and reordered to highlight areas of expertise and to make it easier for client
hiring managers to scan everything they need to know quickly. I talked with
several members of our recruitment staff and am told the only edits made to
resumes are to typos or to make the verb tense of the resume unified. They do
not add information (like fictional degrees or continuing education) to CV’s to
get someone hired.
Why would they?
It would be counterproductive to their success and to that
of the company that employs them. If you
send just one person to an interview with false information it can change your
relationship with your client forever and for the worse. Plus as one employee
put it, “it just wouldn’t be right.”
As there are unscrupulous people out there who pad resumes
there too are unscrupulous companies that can give the recruitment industry, my
industry, a bad reputation. They are few and far between and usually don’t
survive long.
Can mistakes happen? Of course they can, people are not
infallible. There is always a possibility user error could come into play. Does
it occur often or could it occur twice over a period of years? Our recruiters
say no to both questions based on their experiences here and at other firms. It
is a general industry practice and one of our best practices to ask for an
updated resume every time we submit a candidate for a position, even if a month
or two later. The chances of the same mistake being made twice with the same
candidate are virtually impossible.
There is also the case of the interview stage of the
recruitment process. Even if a mistake had been made, the false information
would likely come up in a background check, although some colleges will not
disclose degree type and only confirm graduation) or during the interview
itself; or perhaps in an interview on NPR.
Guilty as publically ‘charged’ or innocent; Thompson is
ultimately to blame for the second instance of his resume allegedly being
submitted with false credentials. As a leader, it is his responsibility to hold
himself ultimately accountable for the misstep and no one else’s. It is my
opinion that he should have said as such. Unfortunately the damage has been
done and several others potentially hurt, including the entire resources
industry, as a result of his actions; and there is no turning back.
Rather than participating in the sport of CEO bashing, I am
taking this discussion to a different level regarding the importance of
accountability, integrity and honesty in our dealings with others as the headlines
about corporate leadership continue to roll in.
Shifting blame or saying nothing can, more often than not,
hurt others. Taking responsibility for ones actions or being honest from the
get go is a much better practice on all levels. Had Thompson come out and said
flatly, “it’s my responsibility no one else’s” my industry wouldn’t have been
affected in the least. The end result is that the executive search firm in
question, Heidrick & Struggles, is most directly affected by his comments.
Some companies and job seekers have the idea that our industry is full of money
hungry hacks that provide no real value. Thompson’s stance only further
propagates this misconception.
The lesson here?
One simple statement to save face or keep your job can have
an unseen impact on others far beyond those directly involved. This is true at
the C-level all the way down to those closest to the work. While the story of
his resume inaccuracy may have broken because of investor hostility, Thompson’s
reaction, intended or not, affected Yahoo!’s public image, possibly the
recruiting firm which he claims is partially at fault, the workers at that firm
not directly tied to the alleged mistake and the industry as a whole.
A lie to cover you tracks at work can have the same effect
no matter how small. Say you made a big mistake and let it go in hopes it would
just go away. Then your supervisor is blamed for sloppiness. Then his or her
supervisor is called into question. In the end it comes back to you, but you’re
all let go.
You’ve just cost yourself, your co-workers and their
families dearly. They keyword here is ‘you.’
We all make mistakes. Sometimes we make big mistakes. How
you deal with them and holding yourself accountable is the key. Although lying is hard to overcome, mistakes,
even the big mistakes, are often an opportunity from which one learns and grows.
