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<p>Um, I believe my statements are entirely apropos: the question on the table is whether your candidacy might be damaged by any suspicions of ‘deception’ from employers. My opinion is, any such damage, if any at all, is far outweighed by the myriad other arbitrary reasons why somebody may not be hired.</p>
<p>@sakky, also consider the additional risk of getting terminated after hiring - if the employer found out that the OP didn’t fully represent himself and had reasonable grounds to suspect that the deception was intentional, they would have more than enough justification to fire the OP.</p>
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<p>While I agree with everything you said, my response to that is: so what? Sure, the implication of the UM brand is meant to entice. Sure, the program might not be “the real thing”, however defined. But hey, let’s face it, the entire rationale of marketing is to entice customers to buy something that may not be “the real thing”. Snow White and the Huntsman is a mediocre movie (as evidenced by rottentomatoes) with a [url=<a href=“Tubidy: Tubidy MP3 Free Songs Music and MP4 Video Download”>Tubidy: Tubidy MP3 Free Songs Music and MP4 Video Download]cracker-jack[/url</a>] sequence of trailers and therefore is poised to be one of the highest-grossing movies of the year. Yet I don’t see anybody accusing Universal Pictures of lacking ethics. That’s just legitimate, hard-nosed, savvy marketing. That’s a fair play. </p>
<p>Similarly, I don’t see why the exact same philosophy won’t apply to somebody using an online MBA program from UM-Flint to market themselves in a way to entice potential employers by saying that they have an MBA from UM. That’s also a fair play. Frankly, probably every company has some people who probably would never have been hired if not for savvy self-promotion.</p>
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<p>And that’s when he might have grounds to sue for wrongful termination if they attempt to fire him for cause, because at no point did he ever ‘misrepresent’ himself. He legitimately has a degree from UM. Again, it’s not a degree from UMAA, but he’s not claiming such a degree. UM-Flint, whether we like it or not, is indeed a legitimate part of UM. If that employer felt deceived by the UM brand, well, to put it bluntly, they should have done their homework and found out what the UM brand really entails. That’s their own stupid fault for not being informed. </p>
<p>But to your larger point, sure, I agree that plenty of people are fired for any number of arbitrary reasons: witness the Quaker teacher referenced above who was fired for refusing to sign a loyalty oath in accordance with her religious beliefs or the [lifeguard</a>](<a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/09/florida-lifeguard-who-was-fired-for-rescue-gets-key-to-city-and-chance-to-meet/]lifeguard”>Florida lifeguard fired for rescue gets key to city and meets man he saved | Fox News) who was fired for rescuing a man who was drowning outside of the lifeguard’s assigned zone. {I suppose the moral of the story is that he should have just let the guy drown.} And of course that’s just some of the verifiable stories of people being fired for outrageous reasons; undoubtedly plenty of other people are fired every day for reasons that nobody can prove. I would therefore argue that any risk associated with being fired for such ‘deception’ is miniscule compared to the mountain of other arbitrary reasons why one might be fired.</p>
<p>@Sakky I think that all of us are basing our arguments on opinion without data. Are there any studies or polls out there that ask hiring officers what their opinion on this issue is? I don’t have time to investigate at this point.</p>
<p>We’re not talking about the what if’s, permutations, limitless possible unforseens.<br>
Female names, Quaker teacher, waitress, Snow White… huh?</p>
<p>It’s about whether this would be deception or missing “the whole truth.”
It’s about whether OP could make a choice that affects his current and future work because someone in charge thinks it’s incomplete, unethical, a mark of poor judgment, a flim-flam, etc. Or a crappy way to invest money and time on a business degree. </p>
<p>Good judgment sometimes means NOT letting someone convince you this is " a beaut," a great buy, the answer to your problems- or ethical. Or, that there is so much going wrong in the world that certainly no one will notice your little deceptions.</p>
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<p>It does not matter what you (or anyone else posting here) think is or is not deceptive or misleading. It matters what someone in the position to hire (i.e. a position of power over the job seeker) thinks is or is not deceptive or misleading, and whether s/he will be offended by it.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus I agree.</p>
<p>This thread is a sad commentary on the ethics of some of the posters who are advocating for misrepresenting your degree because you’ll probably get away with it. There’s not an employer on the planet that would consider an online MBA from the Flint branch to be equivalent to an MBA from Ann Arbor–the mere fact that the credentials required to get into the programs are very different is all you need to know, regardless of the content of the program. OP knows this is the case or he would never have posed the question; every poster here knows it. Shame on them. As an attorney and former HR manager, I assure you that misrepresenting a degree in that fashion would lead to termination, and, BTW, would not give rise to a suit for wrongful termination, since anyone in an MBA position would surely be an employee at will who could be freely fired for any reason other than legally prohibited discrimination. Sakky’s advice on that issue is as poor as his advice on misrepresenting a degree.</p>
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<p>you are exactly right - it is indeed a choice that the OP must make, weighing the costs and benefits of merely stating that he has an MBA from UM, when at a higher level of granularity, he has an online MBA from UM-Flint (but which still counts as an MBA from UM). Like I and the OP already stated numerous times, the advantage is that he might be able to obtain a better job by listing the (not false) statement that he has an MBA from UM. After all, I doubt that Universal Pictures is having to refund many tickets for people who were disappointed with Snow White. </p>
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<p>Again, why? This is business. Success in business is not about the full truth and never has been. Much of business - particularly the realm of negotiation and marketing - hinges upon aggressive self-promotion. The act of hiring is just another business transaction and is therefore entirely amenable to the tactics of negotiation and marketing. </p>
<p>Let’s be honest - do you really think employers always disclose to potential employees the full truth? Within the business setting, to provide the complete truth when your counterparties won’t do likewise is to simply be naive. </p>
<p>Again, this is business. Employers are not your friends. Employers will take advantage of you if you let them. If they think they can get away with paying you less for doing the same job as a coworker, they’ll do it, and they surely will not disclose that fact to you. So why must you feel obligated to provide full disclosure to them? </p>
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<p>I also agree - and by the exact same logic, it doesn’t matter whether anyone else thinks it to be “deceptive” if somebody successfully parleys a UM-Flint online MBA to an excellent job by simply stating (technically truthfully) that he has a UM MBA. If he is hired simply because he managed to “fool” a hiring manager (who frankly should have been more diligent about doing their homework), then that’s all that matters. And let’s be perfectly honest - there are boatloads of foolish hiring managers out there. To quote Larry Summers: “There are idiots. Look around.” </p>
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<p>Actually it seems to me that if anybody is providing poor advice, frankly, it is you. What I said is that a wrongful termination suit would surely ensue if such ‘misrepresentation’ served as grounds for termination for cause, and since you’re a HR staffer, I would ask you: where exactly is the misrepresentation? Please point to exactly where it would be. UM-Flint is, whether we like it or not, part of the UM system. An online MBA is, whether we like it or not, an MBA degree. These are all facts on the ground. Whether UM-Flint is truly equivalent to UMAA or an online MBA is equivalent to a regular MBA is not the issue, the issue is whether, from a legal standpoint, he invoked any designation of which he was not entitled to have. He never once made any resume claims that are false. If a recruiter is fooled, well, that’s their own darn fault. </p>
<p>Now, where I would agree is that companies indeed fire people for plenty of arbitrary reasons. But that’s why one has to weigh the jobs he might lose versus the jobs he might gain. Like I said before, plenty of people obtain jobs that they are not ostensibly qualified to have simply due to savvy self-promotion. Indeed, I’m sure that many of us personally know of at least one such person (I can actually think of dozens). And that’s entirely fair play. That’s business. </p>
<p>Having said that, I would also agree with the notion that business itself exhibits rather regrettable ethical standards. But hey, that’s not going to change in our lifetimes. Whether we like it or not, business is largely based on subterfuge and strategy. Let’s not be naive into thinking otherwise.</p>
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<p>Actually, I’m not even sure that it matters what their opinions are. All that matters is who they hire. After all, what people say and what they actually do are two entirely different things. As an example, I think everybody would have the opinion that they should eat better, exercise more, watch less TV, and read more. But how many people actually do it? </p>
<p>The fact is - and I think we would all agree - there are boatloads of people who are hired not because they truly deserve the job (however measured), but simply because of aggressive self-promotion. The converse is also true - there are boatloads of people who probably should have been hired but simply didn’t promote themselves properly. This is the reality of our business world. In a perfect world, hiring managers would be employing the most competent applicant for the job. We are far from that perfect world, for I think we can all vividly recall employees at companies that are so incompetent that we marvel at how they were even hired in the first place (and indeed, many of them will not only not be fired, but will even be *promoted. The popularity of the cartoon Dilbert can be attributed to the dark realities of the business world, where unqualified employees can nevertheless thrive.) </p>
<p>I do agree with other posters that the OP might later be fired for ‘deception’, simply because anybody can be fired for any number of arbitrary reasons. But it’s hard to see how that’s worse than never garnering the job in the first place. Besides, a savvy employee could take that first job and immediately leverage it to jump to another employer, using evidence of that first job as “experience”. And from that second employer onwards, the college degree recedes in importance. </p>
<p>Now, is that unethical? Again, I would argue once again that that’s nothing more than good, hard-nosed, savvy career management. You have to be the one to look out for your career, because nobody else will.</p>
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I’m a hiring manager and would throw a resume to the bottom of the pile if an applicant deceives me … and given the economy it would be a tough road to make it back to the top of the pile … there would have to be no good candidates among the (apparently) straightforward candidates.</p>
<p>And here is why …</p>
<p>Personally, as a hiring manager I would always wonder if this applicant is willing to twist information to their advantage on their resume will I be able to trust them to give me straight honest information in tough situations … at this point the only evidence I have is the hiring process … and in that process the candidate was not as direct as I want my employees.</p>
<p>Sakky, why such long posts and why two contiguous?
It makes it hard to absorb your point.</p>
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<p>To be more specific: you would throw that resume to the bottom of the pile if you catch an applicant deceiving you. But that’s precisely the issue: what if you don’t catch it? You say that you’re a hiring manager, and probably a savvy one, but surely you would have to agree that there are plenty of questionable hiring decisions being made by incompetent hiring managers every day. Anybody who has ever been in the workforce has surely encountered coworkers who force you to struggle to understand why they were ever hired at all, yet not only were they indeed hired, they sometimes thrive and are even promoted. To once again invoke the Larry Summers quote: “There are idiots, look around.” </p>
<p>In a perfect world, all hiring decisions would be soberly made purely on meritocratic attributes by well-trained and well-informed hiring managers. Furthermore, all employers would likewise reflexively provide full disclosure regarding the actual job responsibilities and future career prospects for every position that they are trying to fill. Sadly our world is far from perfect. Let’s face it - employers routinely “misrepresent” themselves to employees as a matter of course. I can think of numerous employers who "laid off’ new employees by rescinding job offers that had already been signed…and after those employees had already turned down other offers from other companies, and indeed, after some of those employees had already made arrangements to move to live close to their rescinded jobs. Those employers deliberately chose to disclose precisely nothing about the pending instability of the offers. And they’re not going to stop. Why exactly should you naively provide full disclosure to employers when employers feel no obligation to do likewise? </p>
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<p>I feel I must ask: what exactly is ‘deception’ anyway? If an older female candidate dolls herself up with extensive makeup and fashionable hairdo and dress to look younger specifically to avoid age discrimination, is that ‘deception’? How about an older balding man who dons a toupee? How about if my name is Barack but I decide to go by the name “Barry”, perhaps I don’t want to suffer from any connotations of having an exotic African name, as sociological studies have demonstrated that the same applicant with minority-predominant names are far less likely to receive interview callbacks than those with neutral names. How about gay applicants who deliberately omit mention of any affiliation with LGBT social groups, as per the new [url=<a href=“http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/facBios/file/tilcsikajs.pdf]paper[/url”>http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/facBios/file/tilcsikajs.pdf]paper[/url</a>] in the American Journal of Sociology that demonstrates the widespread discrimination that employers exact upon the identifiably gay. </p>
<p>In the situation at hand, the OP has an online MBA - which legitimately counts as an MBA - from the University of Michigan- Flint, which legitimately is a part of the University of Michigan. The OP will not have made a single false claim. Not one. I hardly see how that’s any more ‘deceptive’ than the 40-year woman who uses makeup to try to look like she’s 30.</p>
<p>Except you’re comparing an innate trait (age/orientation/ethnicity) which cannot be changed and should not be discriminated against to an acquired trait (education and qualifications) which can and should be used to hire new workers. The two are not equal.</p>
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<p>I think your first question answers your second question. I am well aware of how long my posts already are: imagine how long they would be if they were contiguous.</p>
<p>As for why my posts are so long in the first place, well, I’d rather provide too much information than too little. {I once tried writing short responses and then my detractors would complain that I was glossing over important details.} </p>
<p>But if you want a nutshell on my point, then consider the following. I actually agree with the other posters here that the OP’s strategy perhaps would cause him to lose certain positions under the ambiguous and subjective notion of ‘deception’ - or perhaps later might cause him to be fired from a position he did have. On the other hand, he would surely certainly gain positions that he would not have had otherwise (for, again, let’s face it, many hiring managers are not well-informed). Whether the gains outweigh the losses is ultimately an empirical question. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the OP’s strategy - while obviously aggressively - is nevertheless entirely within-bounds. Not once would the OP have ever lied, for he does indeed technically have a UM MBA. The employer might assume certain attributes about you, but hey, you’re not responsible for their assumptions. Nor can the employer fire you for cause for lying, because, again, you never actually lied. {They might fire you anyway, but hey, people get fired for entirely arbitrary reasons all the time. You could be the most honest and most productive worker in the company and still be fired anyway.}</p>
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<p>Are you sure? Seems to me that switching monikers from Barack to Barry is a change that anybody can make. {I’m talking about continuing to invoke such a name change even during a face-to-face interview when the employer can obviously already see what race you are.} Plenty of people apparently continue to believe that sexual orientation is mutable. Physical attractiveness is mutable - depending on how much you want to spend on makeup, hair, clothes, and even cosmetic surgery - and sociological studies have demonstrated the obvious result that physically attractive people tend to obtain better jobs. {So maybe the example should be that women doll themselves up not necessarily to avoid age-ism but rather to avoid ugly-ism}. </p>
<p>But more to the point, you’re continuing to presume that the hiring process is always soberly conducted under purely meritocratic tenets that carefully weighs the qualifications of the candidate and how they fit the technical requirements of the firm. That is far from the truth. People are routinely hired for any number of arbitrary reasons, under a process that is very much ad-hoc. I know of a guy who was hired after a plane ride sitting next to somebody who happened to own a company, where all they did during the plane ride was have a raucous conversation about their shared interest in various sports teams, and only at the end of the ride did the guy mention that he was seeking work, whereupon he was made a job offer on the spot. Presumably, if he just happened to have been a fan of rival teams, he wouldn’t have gotten the offer and he might still be unemployed. {And no, the job in question has nothing to do with sports.}</p>
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<p>Except that things like UM-AA vs. UM-F are not exactly difficult to catch, if the employer considers it deceptive to say “UM” and hope that UM-AA is assumed.</p>
<p>Indeed, if the company’s HR does a routine background verification check of claimed past schooling and employment, that could result in an uncomfortable situation when a check of UM-AA reveals that there is no record of the person in question having ever attended.</p>
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<p>However, an employer who believes that you deceived it (regardless of the technicality of actually lying or not) has one more reason to fire you than it otherwise would have. Or even in the absence of being fired, you may be trusted less and be given less desirable work assignments, etc. which will reduce your career growth (whether you stay there or move to a different company later).</p>
<p>In many circumstances, an error of omission is equal to an error of commission.
You can argue it. </p>
<p>The risk has to be weighed. In some cases, the risk is minimal. In other cases, it can snowball. Imagine being caught embellishing and accused of doing it purposely. Imagine the employer who doesn’t take a casual attitude or who has corporate policies he’s mandated to follow. </p>
<p>Sure, we all can cite someone who either got away with a white lie or was punished unjustly for something else. That’s not the point here. </p>
<p>“MBA, University of Michigan, Online.”</p>
<p>In the end, what matters is the probable impact on YOU. Not all the “yes, buts.” And, why all this arguing, anyway? An MBA online sounds to me like half the value. You really think a top financial firm is going to be satisfied when your competition at least did a face-time, team-oriented, real life clients, competitive program?</p>
<p>Sakky, are you seriously arguing that because employers may have questionable ethics, prospective employees should try to get away with whatever they can? Where do you learn your business ethics? Are you an adult functioning in the business world or just a student? In either case, how do you have time to write such lengthy (and repetitious) posts?</p>
<p>OP, I think it’s clear the consensus here is that misrepresenting the source of your degree is unethical and, like any other resume inaccuracy, likely to bite you in the butt. But I think you knew that, because your parents raised you right. There’s really nothing else to add to this thread.</p>