What should be the penalty for lying on resume? In most of the companies, candidate will surely lose the job. Now this question is Flying around the new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson.
According to TechCrunch editor Eric Eldon, “For more than half a decade, at least, Thompson has told the world that he’d gotten a computer science degree from Stonehill College, located outside of Boston. Today, that falsehood got exposed by activist Yahoo investor Daniel Loeb, whose firm discovered that he had in fact gotten an accounting degree.”
Daniel Loeb, CEO of a hedge fund called Third Point that owns 5.2 percent of the embattled Sunnyvale Internet company, sent a letter Thursday that says Thompson’s official bios with PayPal owner eBay (EBAY) and Yahoo claim he has undergraduate degrees in accounting and computer science, but the college from which he graduated told Loeb Thompson only has an accounting degree. Thompson graduated from Stonehill College near Boston in 1979, according to his bio.
“If Mr. Thompson embellished his academic credentials we think that it 1) undermines his credibility as a technology expert and 2) reflects poorly on the character of the CEO who has been tasked with leading Yahoo! at this critical juncture,” Loeb concluded.
In the past, other companies have suspended or fired executives who were caught lying on their resumes.
Scott Had started his career as the chief information officer at Barclays Global Investors and then worked as president in Paypal.
Yahoo confirmed that Thompson does not have a degree in computer science, but called it “an inadvertent error.”
“There was an inadvertent error that stated Mr. Thompson also holds a degree in computer science. This in no way alters that fact that Mr. Thompson is a highly qualified executive with a successful track record leading large consumer technology companies,” a Yahoo spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
The statement war is running between Yahoo and Loeb. But the real issue is that Thompson has lied about his qualification and Yahoo is saying it only a “inadvertent error” that is really disappointing.
One more post on Techcrunch show that Yahoo has clearly mentioned that anyone lying on the resume would have been at risk of losing job. So we think that the rule must be applied on the CEO as well.
Even though Thompson does not have a computer science degree, Thompson has a charming background in computer technology. He served as PayPal’s chief technology officer for three years and then as a president in 2008. He also previously worked as chief technology officer at credit- and debit-card processor Visa USA. But what is the reason behind this issue. And what about the rules of the company which must be same for all the employees.
