MT203 Case Analysis Template

READING

At least once or twice a year, businesspeople the world over are reminded of the high cost of a little exaggeration, a material omission, or an outright lie on a résumé and how a tangled web concerning one’s background can lead to career catastrophe.

Consider the case of the MIT dean whose career track was halted when her employer realized that she hadn’t graduated from a single one of the three institutions from which she had claimed to have earned degrees. Or any one of a string of business executives who learned the hard way

that faking their way is no way of making their way into executive management.

Just ask headhunter Jude Werra. The president of Brookfield, Wisconsin–based Jude M. Werra & Associates has spent the better part of 25 years documenting execu- tive résumé fraud, credentials inflation, and the misrepre- sentation of executive educational credentials. It’s something that has kept Werra pretty busy over the years, given the prevalence of such management-level chicanery and the fact that so many ambitious and transition-minded individuals have convinced themselves that it’s their credentials—real or otherwise—that matter most.

Werra’s semiannual barometer of executive résumé de- ception hit a five-year high, based on his review of résu- més he received during the first half of 2007. He figures that about 16 percent of executive résumés contain false academic claims and/or material omissions relating to edu- cational experience.

And when you account for the fudging of claims of ex- perience unrelated to academic degrees earned, it’s easy to see why executive headhunters generally acknowledge that as many as one-third of management-level résumés contain errors, exaggerations, material omissions, and/or blatant falsehoods.

Some people will stop at almost nothing to get to where they want in their career. Still, Werra wonders why other- wise experienced executives would inflate their credentials or otherwise mislead with their résumé, in light of the potential career-ending consequences.

Given the alarming levels to which they do attempt to mislead, he constantly reminds hiring organizations that it’s critical that they verify what they read on résumés, even at the executive level. What’s even more alarming—and more prevalent than people falsifying their backgrounds and qualifications—is the number of hiring organizations that fail to conduct a rigorous background check on their new management recruits. Far too many organizations figure that checking a few references is enough.

And even the most thorough reference checks won’t un- cover false claims that predate those references’ own profes- sional interactions with the individual executive. It’s quite possible that a fabrication of one’s education, certifications, and experience is what got the executive his first manage- ment job many years ago, leaving the trail cold unless it’s reopened during the course of a diligent background check.

When it comes to executive-level hiring that’s going to cost the organization into the high six figures, at mini- mum, when you factor in headhunting fees, the new exec- utive’s salary, and benefits, it becomes a matter of caveat emptor [let the buyer beware].

A thorough background check is an important insur- ance policy for the recruiting process, and headhunters will tell you that your organization risks getting burned if an executive it hires has, at any time in his or her past, de- cided to assume the risks of playing with fire. Given the high cost of a bad executive hire, today’s organizations simply can’t afford not to do their homework.

TEMPLATE

Name of Case

Introduction

This is generally one paragraph. The easiest way to explain this section is to think of it like a brief overview of the topics you will be discussing in your paper. The introductory paragraph is designed to set up the rest of the paper by offering your reader a glimpse of what is to come. The goal here is to grab your reader’s attention and make him/her want to read the rest of the paper. Type your paper in the third person (no I, my, we, you, our, your…)

Review/Analysis of the Case

Answer to question #1 with supporting arguments-minimum one paragraph. Your response should be written in your own words, using your own thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Include information from the chapter reading assignment and the case study to help support your points. Be sure to let your reader know where you got your supporting information by including a citation afterward. An example of a citation for your textbook is (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2009).

Answer to question #2 with supporting arguments-minimum one paragraph. Your response should be written in your own words, using your own thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Include information from the chapter reading assignment and the case study to help support your points. Be sure to let your reader know where you got your supporting information by including a citation afterward. An example of a citation for your textbook is (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2009).

Answer to question #3 with supporting arguments-minimum one paragraph. Your response should be written in your own words, using your own thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Include information from the chapter reading assignment and the case study to help support your points. Be sure to let your reader know where you got your supporting information by including a citation afterward. An example of a citation for your textbook is (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2009).

Further questions- same as above

Summary and Conclusions

This is generally one paragraph. The easiest way to explain this section is to think of it like a closure for the topics you discussed in your paper. The concluding paragraph is designed to wrap up the paper by offering your reader a review of what he/she just read. The goal here is to summarize your own responses to the case study questions, while at the same time providing your reader with some points to ponder after reading the paper.

References

Noe, R., Hollenbeck, J., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. (2009). Fundamentals of human resource management, 3rd edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.