Many people are tempted to fake their college credentials in order to land the perfect job. With the increase in job qualifications and experience needed to get a job continuing to grow, the temptation to fake college credentials to get ahead is at an all time high. Also, with hundreds of “diploma mills” and other fake credential services willing to provide people with the proper fake transcripts and other paper work, it is easier than ever to get by with out having real college credentials.

While faking college credentials might seem like an easy and effective thing to do to get ahead in the work place, there are many risks involved. Faking your college credentials can be an extremely risky thing. While fake college credentials might get you the job initially, chances are, someone will catch on and you will be fired from your job. Even worse, the chances of getting another job decrease tremendously. Many companies know about the ability to buy fake credentials online, so they are becoming more aware of this, and taking extra precautions. Along with fake degrees, there are also fake universities that people can pay to “attend”. In situations like this, employers can actually call the fake university and there will be someone there to verify your fake degree and fake GPA. For example, say a job applicant lists that he or she has an MBA from Kennedy-Western University or any other unaccredited university. When the HR person call from the potential employer to validate the persons attendance, some one at the “University” will validate that the person graduated from Kennedy-Western University in 2003 with 4.0 GPA from their MBA program. After this is validated, the person might get hired, and the “University” will probably never be contacted again. This is a pretty cool thing, if you don’t get caught. However, because of the increase in awareness of fake college credentials over the recent years, many companies are taking more precautions when hiring someone. In fact, many company’s HR departments are going back to current employees resumes and double-checking their credentials to valid their educational background. This action has created a big stir in many corporations, due to the significantly high amount of people with fake credentials in higher levels of management. The reason that HR departments are doing this is because it could make the company look extremely bad if someone found out that a higher up at the company didn’t have the qualifications they needed. This is extremely important with job positions that hold a lot of liability if something they do goes wrong. For example, it would be extremely devastating to find out that some practicing law or medicine ended up for having the proper credentials. While this seems outlandish because of the liabilities a person could face if they were to harm someone and didn’t have real credentials, the number of people with fake degrees is astonishing.

The penalties for getting caught with fake credentials can be great, especially for people in high-level jobs or high-risk jobs. Many employers will immediately fire the person who lied about their credentials once they are certain that the credentials are not real. Also, there is a risk that legal actions will be taken against the person who lied with charges such as fraud. Besides loosing their job and possibly getting in trouble with the law, the person who faked their college credentials will have their name scorn in the media. It would be very hard to get another job, and almost impossible to get a job in a high level position.

The former CEO of radio shack is an example of a high-powered figure that got caught lying about his college credentials. While CEO of RadioShack, Edmondson was not fired; it was only because of circumstances and timing. The CEO, Edmondson, resigned before being fired, so legal actions were not carried out. However, RadioShack made it extremely clear that what their former CEO did was not accepted and would not be tolerated at their company. Apparently Edmondson had lied about the 4-year Bachelor of Science degree he said he had received. In reality, Edmondson had only completed to semesters at the University. While charges were not pressed because the formed CEO willing quite before getting fired, it is very unlikely that he will have a high-powered corporate position any time soon.

Faking college credentials can only get someone ahead for a short amount of time. In time, they will be found out and the advancements that these people have made professionally will be erased.