AN ETHICAL LITMUS TEST?


You may have learnt about them in university or college, or you may have had to learn by trial and error. However you came to the knowledge and skills, every one of you who has ever applied for a job has one ”a r sum , that is. You may call it a curriculum vitae (as long-winded academics like to ”I have one), a work history or simply a r sum , but whether you like it or not, it speaks volumes about you ”and not just about your work- related knowledge and skills. It also provides the reader with a snapshot of your moral character, although he or she may not find out the truth until later, perhaps until it is too late.

Puffing up the r sum

About five years ago, I received an e-mail from a former student who had, after some difficulty, found what he considered to be a terrific PR job halfway across the country. He proudly attached a copy of the press release announcing his appointment. The information it contained was created by his company based on the work history he had detailed in his r sum , presumably one of the reasons they hired him at all. To say I was surprised by its content was an understatement.

There in black and white on my computer screen was a description of someone I did not seem to know at all. The person depicted in the news release had experience with developing and implementing public relations plans and media relations strategies for several well-known companies, and seemed to have had a progressively successful career of at least five to seven years, although that specific detail was absent. What I did know was that this young man had graduated only a year earlier and that he had spent the previous year working in a completely unrelated field. Yet there was something familiar about the work history.

After some thinking, I finally figured it out. He had, indeed, worked for the companies mentioned and had even ˜participated in each of the activities described. The problem was that he had done these while on individual four-month work terms while a student in our programme and under the supervision of both faculty and employers . There was nothing in the press release to suggest that he had been anything short of the lead PR counsel for these organizations. And of course, r sum s never do indicate that as a student he was less than stellar ”something else I, as one of his former professors, knew only too well.

I call this a ˜puffed-up r sum . Its content is based on a slim slice of the truth which subsequently puffs like the puffed crust of one of those pizzas with the obscenely fat edges.

What was particularly interesting about this young man was that he was sending this piece to me, someone who knew the truth about his experience. It was difficult to determine if he was just plain stupid or if he really thought it was fine to do this. Clearly, he never considered that he might get found out.

Another particular temptation to public relations practitioners is related to their particular expertise. PR people, with their considerable writing talents, can make even the most mundane job seem sublimely important when they are creating their r sum s. Indeed, I've seen my share of this kind of r sum puffery. But it is not the only way to demonstrate your level of moral development in r sum rookery.

Padding the r sum

Unlike puffing the r sum , in my definition padding is adding patently false information that isn't based on any grain of truth.

In a January 2003 issue of Business Week magazine, a small piece tells of three executives who had padded their r sum s with fake degrees. [ 1] It seems that the board of a large software company discovered that their chief financial officer never did graduate from Stanford University's business school and no one had noticed for some 15 years. In another situation, evidently the chairman and CEO of Bausch and Lomb Inc. falsely claimed to have an MBA from New York University. This falsehood cost him a bonus of $1.1 million. In another case, the head of MCG Capital Corp. admitted that he had never received the undergraduate degree on his r sum .

You might say, what's the difference now? These people have been able to fulfil the requirements of their jobs successfully for many years. They clearly did their jobs well for some years. That, however, is not the point. The point is the level of moral thinking that these r sum problems represent.

If these high- powered , high-profile individuals padded their r sum s with credentials they did not possess, how many others in more lowly positions are doing the same thing? And why did they do it? Well, at least part of that answer is clear: because they didn't think they'd get caught ”and for a long time, they were right. Which brings us to the issue of what such padding and puffing says about the person who does it.

First, it appears that these individuals are functioning at a relatively low level of moral development: they choose to do something questionable thinking that they are unlikely to get caught. One can infer from this way of thinking that they would make what we might consider to be the moral choice only in circumstances where they knew that they might otherwise get caught or when there was something in it for them.

Second, and perhaps even more pervasive, is what this behaviour says about their level of respect for those who are reading their r sum s.

As illustrated in the Business Week article cases, sometimes the dishonesty in the padding isn't recognized until some time later. Indeed, these individuals probably thought they were home free ”that they would not get caught. What does this say for their level of respect for those hiring them? Demonstrating a low level of moral reasoning often indicates a low level of consideration for others. It is this consideration of others that is further demonstrated in interpersonal interactions ”simple good manners, or lack thereof.

[ 1] Padded r sum s, Business Week , 13 January 2003, Issue 3815, p 84




Ethics in Public Relations. A Guide to Best Practice
Ethics in Public Relations: A Guide to Best Practice (PR in Practice)
ISBN: 074945332X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 165

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