This is by far one of my all-time favorite recruiting stories.

Years ago, a co-worker was working to fill several administrative positions.  Part of her responsibility was to verify the information a candidate would enter on their application.  It was common for her to ask candidates to send in copies of their high-school or college diplomas as a way to verify their education.

One day she stopped by my cube and handed me a fax and with a big grin on her face asked “does anything look out-of-place to you?”  It was a copy of a high-school diploma.  The copy was a bit grainy but it was still fairly easy to read.  I read it three times before I finally started to believe what I was reading.

Keep in mind that a candidate was submitting this document as proof of their high-school graduation.  It had not one…not two…but three typos on it.  I must say, it was quite an accomplishment to pack so many typos in a document that had so little verbiage.

As if that wasn’t significant enough, the signature for the district’s superintendent was not the correct name.  It was fairly common knowledge who the superintendent was because that particular school district was in the news a lot and they were currently on the hunt for a new superintendent.

To this day I still do not know what would possess someone to submit a document like that.  I understand there are some people who are willing to lie, cheat or steal.  But in this case, if they are willing to falsify employment documentation, don’t you think they would have someone look it over?  I guess that story ended the way it should have.  Cleary, my co-worker passed on the opportunity to hire this individual.