Not just fake degrees on the internet – fake job references too: CareersExcuse.com

We’ve had print-your-own fake degrees for several years and now we’ve got to the stage of download-your-own-job-references. Fake job references where you can claim whatever you want about your working life.

A US website – www.careersexcuse.com – offers to give convincing fake testimony about whatever part of your career you choose. Their services range from simply rewriting your actual references to creating whole fake companies and having one of their experts give telephone interviews about you – as if you really were their star employee back in 2002.

I suppose people have always done this – getting their friends to pose as contented former employers etc, CareersExcuse.com just commercialises it and makes it all easier to do. It also seems much more wrong. However it’s likely that the main loser will be the job applicant trying to cheat the system, because: a) I’m dubious about just how convincing these references will be and b) I bet this is going to catch up with them and then they could be in serious trouble.

In some ways the internet makes it easier to fake stuff – but it also makes it easier to find it out – surely a few quick Googles or an email would reveal that that a certain company didn’t actually exist… Surely…

Oh by the way, they’ll also fake funerals for you if you fancy a long weekend off sometime…

Related: Keeping up with the Facebookers: How social networking makes liars of us all and Communifaking: Is it ok to fake it?