The Incomplete Reference Check
You are a hiring coordinator. A selecting official has chosen a candidate for a position handling sensitive financial data. Your checklist requires two professional reference checks and verification of the highest claimed degree. The candidate listed two references, but one has not returned three calls. The candidate's resume claims a bachelor's degree from a university whose registrar's verification portal is down for maintenance until next week. The selecting official says the candidate is 'the obvious choice' and asks you to mark the checklist complete so the offer can go out Friday. Today is Wednesday.
1. What should you do about the missing reference and the unverified degree?
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Do not mark the checklist complete. For the degree, use an alternative verification path: request an official transcript or a registrar's verification letter by email or fax, or contact the institution directly rather than relying only on the portal. For the reference, attempt contact through alternate means (email, a second listed contact, or asking the candidate for a replacement reference if the original is unreachable), and document each attempt with dates and times. If verification genuinely cannot be completed before Friday, the correct action is to tell the selecting official that the offer must wait or be conditioned on completion, not to certify completion falsely. The judgment is that a checklist signature attests to facts, and the pressure of a preferred candidate does not change what has actually been verified.
2. The selecting official says the degree 'probably doesn't matter' for this role. How do you respond, and what determines whether that's true?
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Whether the degree matters is determined by the position's established qualification requirements and the vacancy announcement, not by informal reassurance. If the position has a positive education requirement or the announcement states a degree is required, verification is mandatory and cannot be waived by the selecting official. If education is not a qualification requirement, then the degree claim is still a resume assertion, and misrepresentation on an application can be disqualifying regardless. Respond by pointing to the announcement and the qualification standard, and ask the selecting official to confirm in writing if they believe the requirement does not apply. The judgment is distinguishing between a requirement that can be documented as inapplicable versus one that is being informally waved away under deadline pressure.