We swear that title is not just clickbait – the situation with Rep. George Santos provides a perfect example of one of the biggest issues everyone faces with hiring today – and why the future of recruiting needs blockchain technology. Multiple investigations revealed that the congressman-elect embellished…a lot. Imagine recruiting a candidate with a great resume, only to find out they made everything up.
Blockchain might seem like more of a stretch, but this case just reinforces the need for good recordkeeping and the ability to use it. All this information on Santos was out there, so why did no one take it seriously before? You can’t expect consistent accountability with any info you’re given today, so you go with what you can see and your gut – then along comes someone like Santos who throws the process for a loop. Without an unassailable reference point for the truth, who’s to say what’s real and what’s not anymore?
Let’s dive a little deeper into the embellishments George Santos added to his resume, and how this actually ties into hiring and blockchain technology:
Who is George Santos?
George Anthony Devolder Santos was elected as the congressional representative of the NY 3rd district in November 2022…and that’s pretty much where the truth ends. Santos was found to have embellished nearly everything about himself (even his name sometimes). Some of the top gems:
Education & Job History
- Santos claimed to have gone to a lot of schools that had no record of him
- He listed fancy degrees from Baruch and NYU, but was later forced to admit he “did not graduate from any institution of higher learning”
- Described himself as a “seasoned Wall Street investor,” but his claims to fame here – Citigroup and Goldman Sachs – have no record of him either
- One of the two firms where his employment could be verified was labeled a Ponzi scheme by the SEC
- Santos was also caught embellishing his voting record only a week into his congressional tenure
Financial History
- Santos told different people that he was either rich or flat broke and needed money, as the situation called for it
- His assets on paper went from $5000 to $11 million within two years, just in time to start rebranding himself for his second election run
- Donors have implicated him in committing potential fraud while fundraising
- There’s a ton of campaign finance discrepancies, including very questionable reporting on where money came from and how it was spent
- Despite emphasizing he’s “not a criminal,” he’s faced multiple accusations of embezzlement and fraud in both the US and Brazil
- May have spent church and GoFundMe donations meant for his mother’s funeral on a ski trip
Good on Paper – Where Resume Screening Fails
“My sins here are embellishing my resume”
George Santos
What would you do if you saw a resume that had everything you needed in a sales role, right now? It’s as easy to claim you’d look closer as it is for Santos to claim he doubled Goldman Sachs’ revenue and beat cancer – the reality is there’s no way to suss out minor red flags from major ones beyond intuition. Santos’ own resume is a great example in itself, padded with enough keywords and filler text that it could pass an automated screening. All he needed was to get his foot in the door and talk his way into the job, as would any candidate that knows how to game the pitfalls of interviewing in today’s mostly digital world.
The New World of Hiring
There are a lot of obstacles to verifying information with 100% accuracy in a time where stuff like deepfakes exist. Even at the less ‘scary AI’ end of the spectrum, you still risk running into someone who knows how to bend the truth and convince hiring managers they’re the right fit. This isn’t a hypothetical either – we’ve heard horror stories in our industry of even executive hires fabricating a whole history of working with big name brands, and these lies hold up until after they’re already hired.
That’s now the old world of recruiting – the new one emerging is bringing back accountability through the power of blockchain technology. This changes how data is handled, delivering immutability, security and transparency to the resume process for both candidates and hiring managers.
Picture this: you are a hiring manager, a CEO, or even just a voter. You look at our Connect profile and you can see verified experiences. You no longer have to come up with creative questions to try and understand where the candidate has stretched the truth. You know if their experiences are real, the time frames are real and the successes and failures are real. Imagine, never having to interview again as a candidate or a hiring manager. For 3% of people they’ll hate it but for the rest of us, we can avoid one of everyone’s least favorite pastimes. The interview process.
Where Blockchain Fits In
Let’s start with what blockchain is – an immutable digital ledger where data is distributed across a network and protected by cryptographic encryption. The security also guarantees the immutability part – once recorded, data cannot be altered, meaning that you have a permanent historical record that can always be validated as a reference. Resumes on the blockchain can’t be fudged so verification is guaranteed – no more padding work history.
RecruitCoin, a utility token we’ve launched in 2023, is going to help our Betts Connect Network solve this and more. Connect is our online hiring platform where SaaS startups interact with millions of pre-vetted candidates, both actively and passively looking for new opportunities. RecruitCoin will transform how employers engage job seekers for their time and data through Connect, as well as bring trust back in resume screening with blockchain’s immutability.
The Future of Recruiting
Wouldn’t it be great if you could knock a George Santos out of your talent pool right away? With RecruitCoin, members of the Betts Connect Network will have access to Resume 3.0 – an immutable ledger that keeps a record of work and education history that can’t be rewritten the way George Santos rewrites his campaign website every time he’s caught. This lets us create a peer review-style immutable system of record for employment, education and – most importantly – skill sets. Not only will this allow candidates to automatically verify their qualifications, but it also enables us to match them with roles that reflect their real skills and reduce the number of interview steps needed to qualify a new hire.
To learn more about RecruitCoin, watch our webinar with Betts COO Patrick Kellenberger on The Future of Recruiting here.