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<p>But the question is - which resumes do they decide to forward? I don’t know about you, but at every single employer I have been familiar at doesn’t simply forward every resume they are sent, for that could easily number in the thousands or more, particularly if resumes are collected through online job postings. Indeed they won’t even forward more than a small minority. HR generally utilizes certain screens and then forwards resumes who survive those screens to the forwarding manager. And yes indeed, often times those screens will only pass through those candidates (if we’re talking about entry-level positions for new grads) from certain schools. </p>
<p>Now, granted, the hiring manager often times influences how those screens are set. Nevertheless, the fact is, screens are generally necessary simply to whittle down the avalanche of resumes that employers collect to a manageable number, and those screens are therefore necessarily statistical approximations. Nevertheless, I see no ethical problem whatsoever with a candidate circumventing such a screen to land the interview. The hiring manager might indeed consider such a maneuver to be unethical, but hey, on the other hand, by playing things ‘straight’, he would have never even gotten the interview at all.</p>
<p>And of course, like I said, that all assumes that the hiring manager would even find out at all. Given the deeply questionable hiring decisions that firms routinely make every day, color me skeptical. </p>
<p>I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if firms truly cared so much about the ‘upstanding ethics’ of their employees, then exactly why does the blizzard of scandals in the business news continue unabated? LIBOR manipulation, Mexican drug cartel money laundering (HSBC), illegal pharmaceutical off-label marketing and concealment of safety data, egregious violations and/or outright theft of segregated customer accounts, insider trading, and of course the still as-yet-unprosecuted mass fraud revolving around fraudulent mortgages and related securities - the parade of horribles stretches seemingly to perpetuity. If firms were truly so concerned about the ethics of their employees, then shouldn’t all the employees involved in those egregiously unethical, and often times outright illegal, activities that perpetually appear in the daily news have simply never been hired in the first place? Or if they were somehow hired, shouldn’t they have been quickly discovered and fired before they could inflict any damage?</p>
<p>Seems to me that only two possible choices are viable: (1) firms aren’t particularly circumspect about the ‘ethics’ of the employees that they hire, or (2) firms actually aid and abet the unethical behavior of their employees. I personally prefer to believe (1), but if you would like to argue that (2) is likelier, you’re welcome to make that case. But either story doesn’t exactly support the notion that firms soberly vet the ethics of their employees.</p>
<p>Besides, let’s juxtapose the situations that we are discussing. On the one hand, we have somebody with a UM-Flint online MBA who is stating (truthfully, if aggressively) that he has a UM MBA. On the other hand, we have bankers caught manipulating LIBOR for which Barclays has already been obligated to pay fines of over $400 million and resulting in the termination of the CEO, COO, and Chairman - and that’s just at Barclays, as everybody expects a slew of upcoming revelations from other banks. We have GSK just a few weeks ago pleading guilty to criminal charges and agreeing to settle for a $3 billion for illegal marketing - the largest settlement in US pharmaceutical history. To fixate upon the ethical dilemma of the proper branding of UM-Flint during the current season of corporate scandals is like comparing a mole-hill to Mount Everest.</p>