I lied on my CV and I feel like shit
It's been about 3 months since I started full-time An1 at a mid market bank and I officially passed my probation with unusual praise. I had previous internships at boutique PE which helped me a lot get this job. One of the criteria they explicitly mentioned on their advert is that applicants must have achieved a 1st class degree. I got a 61.3% that's borderline lower 2nd. I wrote that I had a 1st degree with much higher percentage on my CV. For Americans, consider this as the gap between someone with 3.9 and 3.0 GPA. I applied because the industry coverage for this job matched my experience.
Got through the screening, then modelling tests, then several interviews. No one noticed. They didn't even ask for my transcripts, only my certificate which does mention my grade but I took it out. I was waiting for background checks to get busted but nothing came out of them. It's been months and I feel like a fraud who's taking someone else's place. I feel like karma will come after me inevitably and it will be brutal.
Everyone here is school smart except me. Idk what to do with this guilt.
You should delete this post and pray that you never get caught. This will stay with you your entire career
I know an Italian guy at McKinsey who once told me he lied on his CV. Not just exaggerated his experience which is tolerable/unverifiable, dude went through his CV and told me he straight up manufactured internships and projects, in addition to also lying about his GPA. Not only did he get the job, he is doing too good at it and has been promoted earlier than his cohort.
I don’t even know how he did all of this or if he was telling the truth. But the stuff he manufactured was around lockdowns so maybe they didn’t bother to check those.
Mamma Mia
Makes sense. McKinsey just makes shit up. So technically he’s a perfect fit.
good for him
MBB consulting firms care a lot about how you tell your story and what perception you create, not what really happened, so it kinda is "eat your own dog food".
Take the interviews for example ... at least half of it is you telling (unverifiable) stories about your past work and life experience.
Seems the guy is actually a good consultant. And your anecdote sounds very Italian, I trust it.
Obviously, he should have never told anyone, not even you. That's his main mistake.
lol this must be a bait... how did you manage to "take out" the grade - 2:2 - from your graduation certificate? it's literally printed in the middle of the page.. also, the proper background check verifies with uni your grade/study dates etc it's done thoroughly in the UK
It was not my graduation certificate i hadn't graduated when i applied yet. It was attendance certificate from the programme management that mentioned the dates and degree and overall grade
haha okay, makes more sense now. Still wild if true, but irl I actually know one person who pretends they completed their BSc whereas didn't pass one module, and their CV was screened only before graduation on similar terms to yours. Anyway, such things may become more complex when you'll be trying to lateral whatsoever but considering they gave you a job, just do your best
honestly, you've put yourself in a really difficult position here and the only way this ends is with you being terminated. It's only a matter of time before they realize they dont actually have your degree on file, or they run an annual background check by protocol and see the discrepency. Your best option right now is to leverage the fact that you have the job you do and move to a different firm, with your real stats obviously. Doesn't matter if its a pay cut, a major decrease in prestige etc, you should be focused on making sure you can stay in the industry - forget the job you have now - because if you get caught you will undoubtedly be blacklisted from working at any reputable financial firm in the future, understand that.
Lying about some shit grade is one thing but making this dumbass post is even worse 😂
Exactly – this (the post) clearly shows that they are not fit for this position, or any other
Which company did your screening? I remember very well my background check in the uk was done by a company called sterling and they were quite harsh on the details including my MSc grades
Maybe because it was an MSc whereas OP hadn't even completed his degree when he applied. Seems like they only ask for Proof of Enrollment when onboarding undergrads who are in process of finishing their degrees.
Tbh I don't think it's that big of a deal. I would not encourage you to continue lying on your resume in the future, but the barriers to entry in this job are already so high, and it sounds like you had a lot of other relevant resume experience. You did what you had to do, but now you're performing up to expectations so who cares?
Live and learn. Make peace with your decision and move on
if this is true id delete this bro lol
Don't be a hero now and move on with your life. It's not like you're lying about graduating (Harper in Industry)
Mike Ross is real
We’ll know what firm this is when they change their name ten times in seven years.
Don't make it a habit to lie on your CV / resume but at the end of the day, I could not care less what GPA or rank you had.
Can you do the job well? Do you have positive attitude? Do you learn from your mistakes? Are you a solid analyst to work with? I care about you doing the role we hired you for and if you help the team, I view that as a solid hire.
I work with some analysts who went to top schools, killed their standardized tests and had better GPA than me -- yet when it comes to their work product / ethic and the day to day, they are worthless.
Couldn’t* care less. If you could care less, then it’s nonsensical to your point
Fixed. Thanks.
Oh boohoo. If you actually feel that bad come clean to your staffer first thing Monday morning with an apology and let the chips fall where they may.
If you’re not going to do that then I suggest you do some soul searching and make it a point to never do this again - just put your head down and work hard to catch up. It’s really that simple - keep your feelings out of your job.
UK background checks are surprisingly porous if you play the right tricks
It's not just the uk you can get away with some tweaking anywhere. My roommates in college in the us were cs majors and they would host brainstorm sessions with friends where they discussed in detail how they lie on their resumes. You wont believe where these guys ended up. Plus the screening companies many banks use in the uk typically have presence in america too.
What most likely happened with OP is that his grades weren't scrutinized because he had a good run with tests and interviews and is likely a solid performer so no one gaf.
You don't feel bad, you're bragging because you feel like you got away with something. If you felt bad, you wouldn't make this post.
Troll post. Don't waste your time engaging
Delete ts bro
You've been on this job several months? You're already in the clear, nobody cares. Don't bring it up
thats not neccesarily true tho, given all this is true, its not unheard of for a firm to run a bg check every year or two.
A background check wouldn’t show his grades. Maintenance checks, if even done, are to look for legal issues and arrests.
why does a tiny boutique have more stringent grade requirements than top BB banks lol
Who gives a fuck? 😭 you got the job and that’s all that matters. Delete ts now bruh
Exactly. HR at the end of the day cares about shit like not hiring an excon or someone on the run for a serious crime. It's likely that if someone in HR figures it out they wont bring it up because it also makes HR look incompetent.
Delete this post and keep it pushing. You're bound to be OK.
Rachel Reeves lied about being an economist at the Bank of Halifax when she actually worked in the complaints department.....now she's chancellor of the exchequer......you're in good company!
Ppl commenting are missing the context here. US and UK have vastly different recruitment dynamics. In the US the concept of an off cycle internship is almost totally unheard of and most, if not all, analyst 1 spots go to returning SAs. In the UK, and all of Europe really, companies run unstructured internships all year long and witty students take them to climb up. Even in DACH countries there are working student programmes similar to off cycles. Analyst 1 spots in London for example would be split between those with long internship record and returning SAs. OP sounds like he belongs to the former group. When I was recruiting I had already completed 18 months of internships and I didn't mention my grades anywhere. It's hard to imagine a senior choosing someone with zero experience over someone with solid experience just because of the GPA difference. Your background checks didn't miss your GPA, they just didn't really care to verify it over your experience, which is ultimately what mattered
Bro what delete this rn
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