| Kippreport.com

Why you really shouldn’t lie on your resume

May 9, 2012 4:26 by kippreport

Kipp isn’t exactly a saint, we’ve flouted the 10 percent tipping rule on more than one occasion and once, when we were in a terrible hurry, we’ve even cut the taxi line. Yes, we are bad-ass like that but the one thing we haven’t done or would never ever EVER conceive of doing is lying on our resume. Sure, we may just exaggerate our leadership qualities to sound like a demi-God of organization, but to go as far as to claim an academic degree we don’t have? Well that takes guts.

And yet, this is exactly what Yahoo CEO Scott Thomspon has been called out on, in a rather public spat with activist hedge fund, Third Point (which owns a 5.8 percent stake in Yahoo!). Third Point has been trying to oust Thomspon for unethical behavior amidst a campaign to get four seats on the Yahoo’s board. Thompson was appointed to the helm in January of this year, after a string of dismissals of Yahoo’s CEOs. Since he’s been in charge of poor troubled one-time-darling-of-the-internet Yahoo, Thompson has engaged in a campaign of cost cutting, involving the sacking of 14 percent or 2,000 employees. Also, Thompson is in talks of selling or closing 50 Yahoo services that haven’t been faring so well financially.

So far Thompson has been heralded for his cost cutting mission, that is until Third Point cast a light on Thompson’s bogus claims to a ‘bachelor’s in computer science.’ Initially, dismissing the matter as an ‘inadvertent error,’ Yahoo’s board has since opened an official investigation into the claims of the degree. Thompson for his part has said, he ‘respects the process’ and that he is ‘hopeful that this matter will be concluded promptly.’ Of course, none of this explains why the degree appears in Thompson’s bios on various websites including his listing at previous jobs including eBay Inc., and PayPal.

Third Point has called for the resignation of Thompson—and though we aren’t exactly experts on ethics, Kipp can’t help but agree. We understand the circumstances and the political motivations behind the call to resign, but fabricating an academic degree for an entire career, well that really is something else, isn’t it. What do you think? Should Yahoo ask for Thompson’s resignation? Let us know in the comments below.