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I’m 24 years old and have just landed an offer for my dream job.

I sailed through the interview process and the company were extremely impressed with my experience and performance during the process.

I came from 6 months in a similar role that I got from graduation, long story short, my previous job thinks that I got a 2:1 in my degree because I hadn’t checked my CV, and my education certificates were never checked. I was lucky, and I completed the job very successfully with no complaints.

Now this new job I applied to have my actual grades (2:2), and after making an offer they have asked for references. I know they are going to confirm degree with previous employer as I am a recent graduate, and they will know that I lied.

Please try to avoid lecturing, I know what I did was wrong, but I guess I want to know what you would do in my situation? What consequences will I face?

Edit: I agree, an educational reference SHOULD come from university/college, however all it would take in conversation is “xxx joined us for 6 months after graduating with a xxx from xxx”, immediately not adding up with the truth.

I know they are going to confirm degree with previous employer as I am a recent graduate, and they will know that I lied.

Why would they do that? I'm uncertain why they would call your employer rather than the university/college? Plus why would they check your grades or gpa? I never heard of that before.

Typically the background process will check the school if you graduated and with what degree/certifications. I never heard of a employer calling to check grades nor have I ever heard of an employer calling a previous job to double check what you wrote on their application while applying and if that matches what you gave them. That sounds rather silly to me and a complete waste of time and resource. "Did he lie to you about his gpa?" would not be a question they would ask each other.

They will need your consent, of course before asking or calling anyone or anything. They just can't call each other willy nilly going crazy and double checking each other's resumes if you lied about anything.

I have heard of:

1. Background agency checking your education credentials. They are not going to look at your resume, but instead what you submit to them in an application with your consent.


2. They will call your previous employer to verify you were an employee. Since they can be sued for libel/slander, they will not give any other information other than if you worked there, and if you were fired/let go of.


3. They will check criminal records of course.

Going forward just don't lie. I wouldn't worry about your previous employer and instead going forward with this employer, don't lie.

No one cares about your gpa or college grades after you have work experience. Just go with the flow. You'll probably get away with this.

In the future, don't include your gpa in your CV or resume, it's a waste of everyone's time. It's also a very poor indicator of performance, so if a company sees that you have work experience and still cares about your gpa, that's a red flag.

That being said, as a few people in the comments have pointed out, if your grades were fantastic, 3.7+ gpa, then bragging about it probably won't hurt you.

I do know that some people purposefully avoid hiring people with 4.0s, so there is a risk to this. I personally don't think there's any reason to give your potential employer more information to judge you by than is necessary, but if you want to go ahead. If your gpa is less than 3.5 don't list it. If it's between 3.5 and 3.7 don't list it after you have some real world experience. Go by your industry's standards for that.

TL;DR You're overthinking it, it's all in your head!

A company is not going to call a previous employer - even if it's your first employer or a company in which you were an intern - and talk about your grades.

They want to know how well you perform, your character, how well you work with others etc.

Grades might be checked with your university but they're more likely to check that you indeed got the degree from said university.

You just got out of school and grades are the prism through which you see the world. This will change very rapidly and you'll see that they don't matter that much in a work environment.

“xxx joined us for 6 months after graduating with a xxx from xxx”

This isn't likely to happen. Your current employer doesn't even know your grades. What may be said: xxx joined us for 6 months. What might be said: xxx joined us for 6 months after graduating from yyy

In the very very unlikely event that your grades make it into the conversation AND someone notices the discrepancy, they might double check your CV and your degree and leave it at that.

Addendum:

Declaring the problem upfront as is suggested in other answers can only be detrimental to you as it will only raise questions to which there is no answer besides the fact that you made a mistake and fixed it.

You made an honest mistake that your previous employer didn't even notice, you fixed it before applying to this new job. Don't mention it. End of story.

So, from your statement, what you did

• Made a typo in the CV, however produced documentation with actual grades.


• The company never cross-checked the documents and went ahead with having your record updated as per the CV.


• You found out later that your record was wrong but you did got get it corrected.

So, I'd say, you're in a grey area. You did not correct a mistake you spotted, which would not have been there if the company would be careful. So, I'd not categorize that as a lie, it's a case where records were not verified and a mistake was overlooked.

You did not lie to the current organization you're applying to. It's highly unlikely (and in majority of the cases, legally not possible, though IANAL) that your prospective employer will go looking for your degree-related information to your previous employer instead of the graduating college / university. So, there should not be any problem for the employment with prospective employer.

Let's learn from the mistake and move forward. Nothing to be worried.

Original Answer for "Lied on resume at previous job"

Well, there's only one way to recover from the pitfall of lying, tell the truth.

Given the state:

my previous job thinks that I got a 2:1 in my degree because I hadn’t checked my CV, and my education certificates were never checked

I'd say, you and your previous employer, both are at fault here. It is generally not considered a white lie, if you have a mistake in CV with the supporting documentation to get it cross verified (and corrected).

So, to declare the problem upfront, is the best solution here.

You did not lie (or, repeated the same mistake) when you applied at the current position, that's a good thing. You can also mention something along the line of:

"Oh, and one more thing I'd like to mention, in the records of my previous company, my grades are entered incorrectly. The actual is the ones I submitted the proofs for. In previous company the records/certificates were not checked properly, and the mistake in the CV went through to official records. I"m making sure it does not repeat here."