She Lied About EVERY Degree on Her Résumé [The Bad Hire Ep. 33]

00:00:00 Most of what's on his resume is completely made up. Oh, jeez. Now, one of these again. He just left. None of us knew where he went or why. She didn't have one legitimate degree on her resume. Not one. MIT confronted her and she resigned within 48 hours. This is The Bad Hire, the show with the best stories about the worst employees. We fired him, of course. People are crazy. It's like an HR nightmare. Right? One bad hire stole all of it. Crazy stuff. She got what she deserved. Oh. I'm your host, Ken Monroe. And every week we dive into real life stories from the wild world of work and what can happen when the wrong person gets the job.

00:00:42 These stories aren't just crazy. They're cautionary tales about lessons learned the hard way. Let's get started. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast, The Bad Hire, where we tell the best stories about some of the worst hires ever. Welcome, Emma. Hi. What's up? Oh, you know. Kyrie. My guy. Good to have you, sir. Yeah. Good to be here. Yeah. I'm excited about that. You haven't been on here before. I know. First time. Yeah. Took you so long. For real. For real. For real. For real. For real. Right? Because everybody knows Kyrie's. If you don't know, if you don't know Kyrie's on BeachX sales team, but you need to, you

00:01:25 got to go check out the LinkedIn posts where he's saying to an office. Now, he's got cool LinkedIn posts because he does these really cool LinkedIn posts where he sings. One of them, one of them is about people not answering your calls, which I love that one. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. But the other day he was speaking at a, what? It was pink. Yeah. He was at a trade show or something. And he had to go up front and talk to the entire trade show for a couple of minutes. And he actually had the entire place singing. He got them all singing, which was awesome. That was good stuff, man. Trying to get them engaged. Yeah. Yeah. They were. Yeah. They were singing sweet Caroline, right? So welcome, guys.

00:02:07 Hey, you know, you guys know the drill. Here's what we do every, you know, every week we, um, we read some of the wildest, uh, weirdest jaw dropping kind of crazy, uh, stories. They could be, uh, you know, I think a lot of them are just like, unbelievable. You can't believe that happened. Um, or sometimes they're a little redeeming. That's the ones I love the, the, the, the good hearted ones where maybe somebody blows it up, but, uh, recovers and, and does, you know, does something, um, amazing. But, uh, what we do is we tell these stories and, um, the folks that are in the hiring business, uh, uh, business owners, you know, uh, people who are dealing with people every day employees, uh, surely this, uh, resonates with them because we've all had, uh, a really

00:02:52 bad hire before probably. So, um, but listen, we also have a contest going. So, um, if, uh, if you submit your stories, you can go to the bad hire.com, submit your stories, check out how to submit the story. Um, and that's how you get on the show. The will, we'll read your story. If you say, uh, you want to be on a segment, if you get an email from us asking, if you want to do a segment, uh, Hey, respond and just say, Hey, sure. I'd love to do it. We'll, uh, we'll set up, uh, uh, some time with a producer. They'll film a clip with you, you telling your story and then we'll play it on the show. Absolutely do that. That's super cool. Um, and then, um, uh, you know, you can just, uh, submit them, uh, directly to our email.

00:03:33 I think it, it, whatever. We have a form. Yeah. So there's a form and some emails you can send them. Now, uh, you can be anonymous. One of the, one of the submissions today is anonymous that I want to, you know, they want to submit. They want to, they want to compete for the $10,000. Um, but they, uh, you know, they don't want their name in the stories and that's totally cool too. We'll be happy to protect your identity as we tell your, uh, crazy story. So the bad hire.com chance to win 10,000, uh, 10,000 bucks. A good luck to you. Shoot your shot. That's it. Yep. So good. Yep. All right. You want to jump into it? Yes. Close up me. I start. Yep. All right. Here it is. In my younger years, I worked for a bank, uh, not in a great location, uh, but that's not

00:04:20 important to the story. I was there long enough for three managers to come and go. And the third and final manager I worked under was terrible. Uh, he was transferred to the branch to clean up as we had already failed two audits. So let's call this manager, Joe. Joe had a knack of showing up disheveled, running on three or four hours of sleep, chugging five hour energy shots all day. And just overall making sure we all knew he hated the opening shifts. Uh, his day to day, his day to day consisted of, of hanging out in his office and only popping out when an attractive woman stopped in.

00:05:00 Somehow he would find his way, uh, behind the teller line, taking over a transaction. We were already processing. This man would fold, uh, this, uh, this man would fold and offer everything under the sun to these women, waiving fees, processing refunds. On one occasion, I had to go physically ask him to override a system message for me to complete the transaction. As my previous attempts were met with, hold on, or just a minute, wait a second. No surprise to anyone. He was helping another good looking, uh, lady. That makes me so uncomfortable. Real, real glass ass. It's got, you know, it's the people coming in to the big, you just see this guy jump out,

00:05:40 come rolling out from there on the counter. You know, you just, it had to be like, I mean, that's gotta be terrible. Yeah. Right. When he finally made it over to my men, my window, he processed the override and waved off our customer. This man physically grabbed my forearm and twisted it, gritting his teeth, advising, never interrupt him again. Okay. Fast forward a few months. Wait, was this a, who was, was this somebody? So, so apparently he's doing his, he's doing, you know, he's shooting the many shots he tries all day long. And he comes and she's trying to get his attention behind the teller because she needs something undone. She needs an override, uh, code.

00:06:21 And so she, she interrupts him to let him know. And then after he handles the, the good looking, uh, woman transaction, he comes over to her and grabs her by her wrist. So another woman. What? He twisted another woman's arm. It's the, the woman telling the story. Oh. It's her. Oh, oh, oh. So she's saying, she, she went over to him. She's asking him, right? She asked him to do this override, but he was already talking to this good looking, uh, this good looking customer. So when that's over, he comes over to her and snatches her wrist up and gives her a tight squeeze and a twist to, to make sure she knows don't ever interrupt him.

00:07:02 Oh, immediately not. They're off the emperor's groove. Immediately. What would you do? What would you do? Would you drop him? I know what you would do. I know. What would I do? I know what you would do. You do. You know how you dial 9-1-1? You would be like. I'm like dialing 9-1-1. No, no, no, no. I didn't say that. You would be, uh, D-A-D. Yes. I would be. Yeah. I would be doing that. D-A-D. I absolutely would be doing that. Uh, uh, dad, that, this man just put his hand on me. I feel sorry for him. Unreal. I don't. Never interrupt me again.

00:07:43 He says, fast forward a few months and all these freebies caught up to him. Joe found out some, so he's given all these ladies freebies. Fast forward a few months, all these freebies caught up to him. Joe found, found out, uh, somehow that he was being fired. And instead of waiting as one would, uh, as one would to kind of accept their fate when they're going to get fired, he just walked up. He just left. None of us knew where he went or why. Um, what we did know is that the market director showed up only to ask where he had gone off to. So market director shows up asking where he's at. Come to find out he scurried off to the branch up the road to cozy up with the manager. There. I never knew how that panned out.

00:08:24 I was leaving for the day after, uh, that someone said the market, I was leaving for the day after, after that. And someone said the market director yelled into the phone that he needed to come back to the branch immediately. So. Wait, so he assumed he was going to get fired and he just walked out of the building? I guess so. And just walks up, just walks up to, uh, uh, another branch. I'm sure I'm done. I'm sure this is it for them. I guess I'll just go down. I'll just see myself. I'm about to get fired. I'm going to head up to this other branch. See if I can get a manager. I'll say. Surely I've done enough. That'll give me a, an out and tell. I'll take him. Yeah. Unreal. Oh gosh.

00:09:08 Nevermind. Nuly. I was going to say something, but I don't think I'm going to say it. I don't think I will. No, say it. No, I'm good. Yeah, I know. I, I, uh, you know, his, this guy's driver, man, was like, like, like, I don't know. He was running that, like it was a, some type of dating scene for him. You know, it was like. I just, it just makes me really uncomfortable. Yeah. I'm with you. All right. So, um, what do you got Joe? Yeah. I will tell you. I, if, if some, if, I know this, if one of my, one of my employees grabbed a night run.

00:09:53 If one of my male employees grabbed one of my female employees by the arm like that. Oh my God. Yeah. That's a problem. Bro. Bounce your ass so fast. Before we dive back into the chaos on the bad hire, this episode is brought to you by BeachX. Hiring shouldn't feel like rolling the dice. Background checks should come with great tech, seamless integration, and customer service that delivers. That's BeachX. Lightning fast results. Unmatched accuracy. Built in fraud prevention. We help you hire the right people. Now, BeachX plugs into over 100 HRIS and ATS systems.

00:10:35 So your background checks run smooth, fast, and backed by top level service. Protect your team. Protect your reputation. Protect your sanity. Go to bchex.io. That's B-C-H-E-X dot I-O. All right. Oh, man. So let's go to, I think we got a, I think we got a story. What is this? This is Matt. I think Nathan met with him. Okay, great. All right. But yeah. All right. All right, Matt. Let's hear it. We hired a young lady as a clerk. I believe she was in her late choice. And she was great. She was a hard worker. She was dependable. She picked everything up really fast. So a year or so into her tenure, she ends up pregnant.

00:11:17 But towards the end of her pregnancy, she decided she wasn't going to take fraternity leave. She was just going to be a stay-at-home mom. So she had a younger sister that happened to be looking for a job at the same time. It seemed like her timing for us, and it just worked out well. So we brought her in. We hired her. She seemed to be on the shy side. But her sister kind of started to fly out as well. So that's not a big deal. But now as she's going, I believe she's there two or three months. And she's learning. She's not quite catching on like we'd like to. You know, she's going, and we're working with her. But then one day, a police officer shows up. And it just comes in. He asked for her. And they talk in the back for a minute. They come out. She's upset. They walk out to the 40-lot, and they arrested her. And come to find out.

00:11:58 So she was working as an office clerk taking payments. And apparently, she had wrote down a customer's hard information. And then used it to her car payment. And then got traced back pretty quickly. How stupid can you be? The customer got her money back. Everything was fine. But, yeah, she had to be terminated that day. Oh. I mean, what did you think was going to happen? I totally never get this, right? I mean, I write down your credit card information. And then I go, I go pay my car payment. But where did it go? What did you think was going to happen? What's this crazy charge? Times are hard. Times are hard, I guess. It's a car payment.

00:12:40 Oh, my gosh. Yeah. You got to really be going through it to get that desperate to do something like that. No, for real. I mean, I get it. Times are tough. But, I mean. Be smarter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hate that. They probably, I don't know. I don't feel bad. Because imagine the first woman who's like, now a stay-at-home mom or whatever. She's like, dang, I handed my sister off for these people and she just stole from them. I mean, she had to know her sister. We were kind of wild. Maybe so. Maybe so.

00:13:21 She's. Well, she's your problem now. Whatever. What do you got, Emma? Me? Okay. I just have one. Today. Let me find it. Okay. Here we go. Sorry, the mic's in my way. So, a buddy of mine works at a mid-sized finance firm. Open floor plan. Analyst pool. The whole setup. They bring on a new hire. We're going to call him Dylan. Who starts on a Monday and by Tuesday at lunch is already across the street at the cafe with a couple of his new co-workers. By all accounts, Dylan is in great spirits. He's talking loudly about how hilarious it is that he got the job at all.

00:14:01 Because most of what's on his resume is completely made up. Oh, jeez. Now, one of these again. And he's not being vague about it. He's a Reddit writer. He's listing it out one by one. Yeah, for real. Yeah. He was definitely reading up on that one thread. Right. The certification, fake. The previous role never happened. The big project he claimed to have led wasn't even at his old company. He's laughing. His co-workers are laughing. It's a whole moment. But what Dylan did not know is that his boss was sitting in the booth directly. Bye. No way. So he's at lunch? Is that what's happening? Yeah, he's at lunch with his co-workers. He goes to lunch. I guess he goes to lunch.

00:14:41 So he started on Monday. And then the next day, he's already made friends or whatever. So they go out to lunch the second day. And he's already just spilling. And the boss is sitting in the booth next to him. Yeah, he just happens to be there. But he doesn't see him at first. The boss doesn't say a word. He just sits there. He finishes his sandwich. He pays. Walks back to the office. And when Dylan returns from lunch about 15 minutes later, his desk has already been cleared out. So total tenure, approximately 28 hours. And that was the end of the day. It's not totally a first day flame out, but pretty close. Yeah, pretty close. I mean, we have a lot of stories. I don't know if you're going to do that. We're going to make all that up. I don't get the bragging about it like the next day.

00:15:25 I don't get bragging about it at all, really. But what do I know? Yeah, that you take to your grave. I can't believe you guys let me in. It's crazy. I'm a liar. How did you guys get here? Because I don't know how I got here. It's you looking around and everybody going, everybody probably lied. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure somebody else could relate. I don't think so. We say this all the time. I just did a piece of content the other day. We did the Radio Shack SEO that lied on his resume and made it all the way to the CEO. The Yahoo one, too. And he was actually crushing it as a CEO. And, you know, got a couple DUIs. Somebody started investigating him. Boom. You know, he loses his job over, you know.

00:16:08 No, he probably wouldn't have gotten the job, to be honest, because, you know, everybody said, well, he doesn't have a degree. But he was given opportunity and he worked his way up. You know, I hate that. I just wonder. Yeah. You mentioned Yahoo. Like, what do they do when they're presented with something and it's not in their wheelhouse? They don't know what to do or how to do it. Yeah. Chat GPT? I guess. Yeah. I guess. What do we do? Yeah. Well, yeah. That story sounds kind of similar to Kyrie's. Oh, it does. He's about to read. Oh, yeah. All right. Tell me about it, Kyrie. All right. So this one isn't from Reddit. This is actually a real news story. Okay. One of the best examples of resume fraud I've ever heard. So Mary Lee Jones was the dean of admissions at MIT.

00:16:50 Not a dean at some regional school. Right. The MIT. She was genuinely famous in her field. The kind of person who got quoted in the New York Times by first name. She co-wrote a book telling high schoolers to stop padding their resumes, relax, and just be authentic. She gave commencement speeches about honesty. She was for all intents and purposes the face of academic integrity in college admissions. She had been at MIT for 28 years when in 2007, someone sent in an anonymous tip suggesting that they take a closer look at her credentials. Their sister. So they did. So they did. Mary Lee Jones had listed degrees from three different schools on her original 1979 application.

00:17:37 She had attended one of them briefly and had not graduated. The other two she had never enrolled in at all, not for a single day. She didn't have one legitimate degree on her resume. Not one. MIT confronted her and she resigned within 48 hours. 28 years at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. A career built entirely on credentials she made up in 1979 and never bothered to update. The most cited admissions dean in the country. The woman who built a career telling kids to stop lying on their applications. Wow. I want to know why it took the one person 28 years to send in the anonymous thing.

00:18:20 Like, it's been this long. I want her to go down now. I admire. That's a long time to hate on someone. Yeah. Supply. To play on her downfall for that long. That's kind of crazy. What's crazy when I was listening to that is like, she was like projecting, right? The whole time is like, she, she, you know, she feels like it's deep in, deep in you that you're just an utter liar to get here. Yep. Yeah. So then you become the mouthpiece for integrity, you know, and I can only think that that that's done in a way to try to like direct people away. Don't look at me. If I'm talking about do all these things, do it this way.

00:19:00 Yeah. It's got to be like, because, um, you know, I don't want you to look at me. So you're just like super projecting. And yeah, another thing I wonder is if she was working at this esteemed like institution, why didn't they double check, triple check her credentials too? Don't like, I feel like they, I feel like they should have done that. That's a great point. But I mean, I, yeah, I was just about to say, yeah, I mean, it's been a long time, I guess. But I, I mean, I mean, people have been lying for however long. So I feel like, I feel like just because it was 28 years ago doesn't mean she's just as trustworthy as she was.

00:19:43 But whatever. Just imagine she's like disciplining someone, committed fraud on their resume. She's like, how dare you? Yeah. How dare you? Yeah. Did you even read my book? I didn't. Here's the top. Here's the copy. Let me sign it for you. It's reading my book.