The Guardian have an interesting article in their G2 supplement today. It concerns the former chief executive of an NHS Trust who has admitted to magistrates that he lied on his CV. Apparently, at the beginning of his career, Neil Taylor lied about having a degree and postgraduate qualification. He has had job after job, before finally being caught out.

The article quotes a bundle of statistics: apparently out of 3,000 CVs sent to a company which is designed to spot lies in CVs, over 25% contained an average of three lies. It seems if you tell one, you tell a few more. But, how many more CVs tell lies. The columnist highlights her own CV: what exactly does having “French” mean under a heading “Skills”. How many people have put they can speak French alongside a GCSE qualification, knowing full well that all they can manage these days is to ask for a coffee? And even then half the sentence will be in English.

I suppose many CVs contain fabrications of the truth. You walk into an interview hoping that there isn’t someone there who knows that “floor manager in X cake factory” actually meant that you were the one who got to wash the most cake tins, or whatever and wasn’t a position of hierarchy whatsoever. Surely employers know that CVs are created by individuals with the intention that they show them to their best abilities. However, I think employers should accept this. What I do disagree with is “actual lying”. Sure, there is a fine line between a fabrication of the truth and a blatant lie, but if someone has made up a degree then that person reprimanded. And, employers should have a duty to check the legitimacy of CVs.

But, in the case of Neil Taylor, I feel slightly different. This guy lied. Once (we assume he is trustworthy in other instances: it would be up to an employer to if they could trust him). He was probably about 20 at the time, and just wanted a job. As the years progressed, it would have been harder to erase the lie. He had an incredibly successful career, showing that you can get somewhere without a degree. He may go to prison, and his chances of future employment have diminished, but ultimately he was good at his job and clearly had done well for himself. Does it matter whether he had this degree or not? I know he lied, and that is wrong but I feel he could be being made a scapegoat: a sign to all those other hoaxes out their to watch their back.

As your Mother always told you, and the commandment “thou shalt not bear false witness” states, it’s quite simple: don’t lie!