Only 8% of Generation X Ever Have the Education on Their CV 's Checked
"Qualifications are less likely to be checked the further away from graduation day a candidate gets, but the Higher Education Degree Datacheck (HEDD) warns of temptation to embellish on CVs due to pressure from the new '2.1 ' wave of graduates. Of the 20,288 enquiries received since HEDD - the government-backed degree verification service - 76% have been to check qualifications of those who graduated after 2000 and almost half are to verify graduates who left university within the last four years. Just 16% of enquiries were to undertake checks on those who graduated in the 1990s, and the number was halved (8%) for those leaving university before the '90s. Eight per cent of HEDD enquiries have been classified as 'unverified '. While reasons for this include incomplete or incorrect information supplied by candidates, such as married names instead of maiden names, there is also evidence of subject changes, grade inflation, fake certificates and bogus institutions. ""Graduates who are further on in their career have more opportunity to blatantly lie, exaggerate or bend the truth a little more than their more recent counterparts simply because they are not being checked out,"" said Jayne Rowley leader of the HEDD initiative at Graduate Prospects."