Help! I made a hiring mistake, and it’s put me in a bind both as a manager and as an employee. I want to know what I should have done so I can make sure this doesn’t happen again.

After three years as a supervisor, I was recently promoted to manager. For the first time ever, I have hiring authority. I got about ten minutes of training on how to conduct an interview and how to set up a new hire with HR. Really, it’s all a blur.

I didn’t know which person to hire, so I went with my gut. There was one person who was head and shoulders above the other candidates — better education, more experience, bright attitude, and plenty of confidence. So I chose her. I checked her references, registered her with HR, and boom, I thought the hiring was done. I told all the other candidates that we’d made a hire, that I appreciated them, blah, blah, blah.

Then the trouble began. My HR officer called me and said, “I don’t think this woman has a degree from this [elite liberal arts] college. I went to this school, and the only degree they give is a bachelor of arts, even in physics and biology. And she’s claiming a bachelor of science degree.” Then the HR officer called the college and was told they’d never heard of my new hire.

So I called the new hire and said we may have a problem; I laid it all out for her. She was perfectly calm, like it wasn’t an issue at all. She explained that she used to be married and had earned the degree under her maiden name. She assured me she was on the up and up and told me to let her know if I had any other questions about her background. I felt like a fool and told her to come in as scheduled on Monday. That was Friday.

When HR tried to verify my hire’s degree under this new name, the college said they’d never heard of her under that name either. Never attended, never graduated. My HR officer insisted that we not tell the hire anything and just let her come in on Monday.

On Monday, my HR officer met my new hire at the office and acted like it was great to meet someone from her alma mater. A few minutes later, she took me aside and told me she was sure this woman was a fraud. The new hire didn’t know any professors, any buildings, the layout of the campus, nothing. So we challenged her, “You’ve never gone to [that school], have you?” This woman was escorted off the property, insisting all the way that she was a graduate of that school!

Now I’m six weeks behind on my hiring project, and the whole company is talking about this incident.

What should I have done?

—Mr. Upset

Dear Mr. Upset,
You’ve been blindsided by a resume liar. Don’t feel alone. My research into this topic finds that 10 (and in some fields, 70!) percent or more of resumes contain substantive misstatements (that is, lies). Recent studies conducted by employers, recruiters, and academics seem to indicate that this problem is getting worse.

It’s frightening to note that in two recent surveys, 10 percent of respondents admitted that they lied, so the real number is very likely higher than that. I’ve been tracking the topic for two decades, and my sense is that around one quarter of executive resumes contain at least one blatantly nonverifiable claim.

To be clear, I’m not talking about an applicant who exaggerates his or her role in an accomplishment, or claims to be fluent in French when he’d have trouble ordering a salad in Paris. I’m talking about people who fabricate educational accomplishments and employment experiences out of thin air.

The problem is compounded by the phenomenon of diploma mills that, for a few dollars, will mail out a seemingly legitimate diploma, suitable for framing. Some of these fake schools will answer the phone and verify the accomplishment to any caller. This situation is exacerbated by those diploma mills that actually pretend to give assignments and grade them. And in some cases they even fool the “student” into believing he or she has earned a degree. (There is a famous relationship guru who has one of these doctorates, and he’s shameless about claiming it to this day, in spite of being outed repeatedly over it.)

Finally, to make the whole situation stink worse than a skunk in a microwave, there are Web sites dedicated to helping people fabricate resume items.

So, what should you do to make a better hire next time? Here are my recommendations.

First, you were right to trust your gut. As Malcolm Gladwell has so thoroughly established in his book Blink, the gut is a fine decision-making instrument. But you have to back up the gut decision with good old-fashioned rational verification. As Ronald Reagan said about making deals with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, “Trust, but verify.”

There are four things any hiring authority should verify for every new hire: education, title, dates, and salary.

I keep a list of accredited colleges and universities on my Web site: donaldasher.com/colleges. If a school a candidate claims to have attended isn’t listed there, that’s a big warning flag. Next, with the person’s name and date of graduation or attendance, call the registrar of the university and ask to verify the education claim.

The HR office of past employers will readily verify dates of employment, and almost all will provide the title the employee held. Most will not provide salary info, but will answer questions like this: “She is claiming an annual salary of $50,000. Can you confirm or reject that number as accurate?”

Another thing to keep in mind is that the references provided by a job seeker are just “level one” resources. An effective recruiter tracks down people who are not provided by the applicant and asks them for “off the record” information.

Yes, this creates more work for you as a hiring officer, but you can’t afford to hire the wrong people, and people who lie to you coming in the door are going to be lying to you later.

On a final note: Don’t tell the other candidates that you’ve hired someone until the new employee has worked a full week on the job. This could save you a great deal of embarrassment.

My best wishes for your continued success.

I feel like I’m going through a career crisis. I have a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Right after college, I worked for two years as an accountant, then for six as an auditor. Right after I passed my CPA exam, I was laid off.

This layoff affected my self-esteem and my career path. I decided to go for a certificate in programming, and then I found a job as a programmer analyst. I’ve been in the same position for the past ten years with no advancement. I’m 42 and no longer have a passion for programming. I want to go back to accounting for three reasons: (1) I’m burned out on learning so many programming languages and updates; (2) the outsourcing of IT jobs makes my future look somewhat bleak; and (3) most programming jobs are contract-based instead of full time.

I haven’t been in the job market for the past ten years, but I’d really like to look for an accounting job. Is this a reasonable goal?

—Maria in Cubicle 12-G

Dear Maria,
Go for it! Accounting is waiting for you, but you’ll have to use a little strategy to get there. For one thing, if you’ve skipped ten years of continuing education, you’ll probably have to retake your CPA exams, but maybe not right away. First you have to break out of programming and back into the accounting arena.

There is a career management concept you’ll need to embrace: It’s called “bouncing.” Think of using a pogo stick to advance your career. Instead of plodding, you need to start plotting, perhaps starting as a bookkeeper, then returning to public accounting as a clerk, then passing your CPA exams again, and then serving as a CPA.

The key is that you may need to switch employers several times in order to get where you belong. Why? People who see you as a bookkeeping clerk are never going to see you as a CPA. And you can’t afford to get stuck again for another ten years! This is the same technique used by mothers returning to the work force.

To break into bookkeeping, or some other non-CPA form of financial services, you should bypass the whole applying-for-a-posted-opening type of job search. You need to network your way into an opportunity. (See my November column on networking, available under Archives at usairwaysmag.com.)