♫ Well, who are you?
Who are you? Who, who, who, who?
I really wanna know…♫

Music and Lyrics by Pete Townshend, recorded by The Who.

A new service has sprung up. It is entitled “Career Excuse.com” Its purpose is to allow you to create false career references for your resume. They state:

Lets say you are applying for a Retail position and have a 3 year gap in your resume you want to fill. CareerExcuse.com has a retail company already established with a 800 number, a real address, a real website, and a real contact person.

Not only do they allow you to ‘fill’ that 3 year gap, they can act as new former job references, complete with: ‘company name, address, “800” number, company website/Email address , contact name, contact phone number, contact email address’.

You can create your own virtual company answered by a live receptionist, or direct any inquiries into voice mail limbo.

What if someone should happen to call the listed job reference?

When we receive a call inquiring about your references, they will be directed to our human resources dept. where they are instructed to fax, or e-mail, a Authorized Release Form and their Employment Verification Form to a contact person that we provided to you as your new job reference.

It seems their creativity knows no bottom:

Bankrupt companies make a great previous employer
We have created a management company with dozens of bankrupt companies that are ready to provide any inquirer your desired reference information.

Advising on ethics is just another part of their services:

Is misinformation on a resume illegal?
No, Since a resume is not a legal document, it is not illegal to misrepresent on a resume.

Course if the employer should happen to find out about this, ah, deception:

Can I get caught and fired?
We can’t guarantee that you wont and not liable if you do. If you get the job in the first place..we did our part. It’s up to you to act responsible after you get the job

After you get the job?

It would seem that an employer must do their own due diligence by checking #800’s and email addresses against valid sources to ensure that they are receiving valid reference checks.

It does seem that they are careful about privacy:

What about my privacy?
For your protection we do not collect or share any personal information about you, such as your name, mailing address or credit card number. All of your financial transactions are conducted through Paypal, our secure payment processor.

When it comes to hiring people these days, it seems that one needs to carefully ask: “Who are You…who who????” because we would like to know…

Hat tip to Pete Roberts for passing this site along!