Caught telling lies
Embellishing a CV detail or two can be risky enough for your average worker bee. Consider the chutzpah of these people who embroidered their paths into high-flying jobs — and were then caught out:
The Apprentice contestant Lee McQueen was caught out early on in the 2008 show on his claim that he had spent two years at Thames Valley University. He had in fact quit college four months into his course. Alan Sugar, selfconfessed fan of the “school of life”, crowned him the winning Apprentice anyway.
Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at Massachussetts Institute of Technology, faked qualifications on her own CV when she first joined the Institute in 1979.
“I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to MIT 28 years ago,” she stated in 2007, “and did not have the courage to correct my resume when I applied for my current job or at any time since.”
The director of communications at Manchester United is a huge job, and Alison Ryan called it a “dream come true” when she landed the position in 2000. She left Old Trafford after just 13 days when it emerged that she had lied about her education and career history.
The American film director and actor Orson Welles made his stage debut in Dublin’s Gate Theatre while visiting Ireland as a young man in 1931. He claimed to Hilton Edwards, then director of the Gate, that he was a big Broadway star. Edwards didn’t believe him but gave him the job, impressed by his passionate audition and his ‘creativity’.
David Edmondson resigned as CEO of major US electronics retailer The Radio Shack in 2006 after “misstatments” that he had degrees in Theology and
