Fabulists For Hire

Aaron Sankin marvels at the ease of purchasing job references online:

For a small fee, CareerExcuse.com promises to not only craft an elaborate lie based on your exact job specifications but to see it through for as long as necessary. The site will provide a live HR operator and staged supervisor, along with building and hosting a virtual company website –complete with a local phone number and toll-free fax. CareerExcuse will even go so far as to make the fake business show up on Google Maps.

There are some lines CareerExcuse won’t cross. The service won’t impersonate an already existing company and refuses to recommendations for fields where someone’s life could be at stake, as with firefighters, private military contracting, and doctors, for example. And the company won’t secure a loan you otherwise couldn’t get. But after that, it’s all negotiable. CareerExcuse will offer references for vendors and landlords. For a time it was even creating phony LinkedIn profiles for the companies it created.

And this is legal? Update from a reader:

You need to read their FAQ:

Is misinformation on a resume illegal?
No, Since a resume is not a legal document, it is not illegal to misrepresent on a resume.

Can I get caught and fired?
We can’t guarantee that you wont and not liable if you do. If you get the job in the first place … we did our part. It’s up to you to act responsible after you get the job.

The question was more rhetorical. Another update:

I work for one of the larger pre-employment background screening companies in the country. Believe me, we have been aware of Career Excuse and companies of their ilk for years. They are technically correct in that it is not illegal, but our clients can and will disqualify you from employment if you falsify your employment history.

Also, their model relies on providing a phone number for companies like us to call. However, we get around that by simply not using the number provided by the candidate on their application. We contact the company through known channels, often the phone number on their own web site. That also ensures that we aren’t calling cell phone numbers to verify employment, which prevents the possibility of contacting someone who is actually an applicant’s friend or relative coached on what to say when a company like us calls. I can’t say that all of our competitors do the same, though.