CareerExcuse.com is a company that provides fake work histories and professional references for job hunters. If you are unemployed and haven’t yet resorted to lying on your resume, maybe you’re not trying hard enough.
With plans starting at just $20/month, CareerExcuse.com will help you lie your way into a new job.
It is a fascinating business model, proving Machiavelli is alive and well!
I can’t help but applaud CareerExcuse for finding a niche in the market and unapologetically filling it.
Is it Legal?
But isn’t that illegal, you might ask? Since a resume is not a legal document, lying on it is not technically against the law.
Is it unethical? How you answer will probably coincide with how you answer the age-old “is it wrong to steal bread to feed your family?” question.
With nationwide unemployment at 9.5%, I’m sure CareerExcuse has no shortage of customers. According to their website, “over the past decade [they’ve] helped literally tens of thousands of people land jobs.” Also according to their website, they were founded in 2009.
CareerExcuse.com Benefits
As stated on their website:
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You choose your career history.
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You pick your start and end date.
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You choose your salary.
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We provide a real company just for you.
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We provide a real address for that company.
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We provide a real website for that company.
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We provide a real “800” phone number.
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We will have our operators standing by.
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We will email you every time someone calls.
- We guarantee your new references will land interviews.
- We guarantee references you are happy with.
I’m not sure if I fully understand what they mean by “real company.” Elsewhere in their literature, they state they have several established “virtual companies.” Virtual, as in the opposite of real.
Still, imagine how good you could make your resume look if you could just make it up!
What Happens If I Get Caught?
Most often, the lie is caught before you get hired, so the punishment is the company simply tossing your resume into the reject pile. Although that’s where you might have ended up without lying anyway, so you’re no worse off, right?
But if they find out after they hire you, you’re likely to get fired for misrepresenting yourself, and CareerExcuse.com will not be held liable for this.
But after you get hired, it’s unlikely the company is continuing to do background checks on you and over time, your lie will probably be forgotten.
(Although there have some high-profile examples where that hasn’t happened.)
However, if you do get caught, now you’re stuck in a vicious cycle of lies that will make it even harder to find a new job.
Some states, including Washington, are taking action against “diploma-mills” — websites that sell fake college degrees — and trying to make it an actual crime to lie about education and employment history on your resume.
But Everybody Does It!
In a 2008 CareerBuilder.com survey, 8% of job-hunters admitted fudging the facts on their resume. Compare that to 49% of employers who said they’d discovered candidates stretching the truth.
CareerExcuse.com estimates resume-lying is even more prevalent, with a full 80% of resumes containing misleading information. I would argue there’s a big gap between rounding up your GPA (misleading) and straight-up making up companies you supposedly worked for (lying).
For Employers
As an employer, how can you tell if a job candidate is using CareerExcuse.com?
Be diligent about your research. In the age of Google and social media, it would be interesting to see how far they’ve gone to preserve the validity of their virtual companies.
Are the addresses given legitimate?
Would Google Street View show the fake company’s storefront?
Do you have to tell all your Facebook friends about the excellent job you did at ABC Corporation? Have they gone to the effort to create shell corporations or private domain registration for the websites for each fake company?
CareerExcuse.com is owned by William Schmidt. According to DomainTools.com, he also owns 159 other domains. If I was researching a job candidate and his “previous employer’s” website was owned by William Schmidt, that might be a red flag.
Another option to help employers tell which candidates are being truthful or not is to use a third-party service like HireRight.
Need More Help Lying?
CareerExcuse.com can also help with rental applications by providing fake landlord references for just $65. And for only $35, they will pretend to be a funeral home for when you need to fake a relative’s death to get some time off.
Clearly a classy operation all the way, but apparently there are customers out there for this kind of service. Necessity breeds invention, right?
What to Do Instead
If you’re looking to earn extra cash, check out my monster list of side hustle ideas. There’s sure to be something that will work for you!
Career Excuse is a company of Lazy Thieves! These crooks stole and copied my website “www.Best-Courier.com” and tried to use it as their own. “www.LightningQuickCouriers.com”
They must not be very good at what they do because we easily discovered their very poor attempt at deception. How many of their customers have been CAUGHT because they were so negligent?
I felt so violated. Why cant they create their own material instead of taking what isn’t theirs! They tried to scam us but were defeated!
Under the threat of Legal Action, they removed MY PROPERTY and probably stole someone else’s. Watchout for this scam! If they didn’t “Cease and Desist” we were calling our Lawyers!
You can call us in Ohio for details at 614-475-8900. Ask for Joe Eckard. I’m the owner.
There are other companies to use for references; Alibi Network, and The Reference Store to name a few.
DO NOT USE CAREER EXCUSE! THEY ARE THIEVES!!! Stay Away from them They Stole from me; I’m sure they’ll steal from you too. THEY ARE SCAM ARTISTS!!!
William Schmidt has a warrant for his arrest: https://ewarrant.org/2yxKyS8
Additionally, I recently found 2 new sources citing our wanted man, William Schmidt:
https://www.docdroid.net/9nybET2/william-schmidt-arrest-warrant.pdf
https://www.pdf-archive.com/2019/08/06/william-schmidt-arrest-warrant/william-schmidt-arrest-warrant.pdf
That bad old CareerExcuse CEO!
It IS ALREADY an actual crime to lie to obtain something of value in EVERY state. If a job is not something of value, why would anyone pay careerexcuses?
I used career excuse and got a job.
Many people used to think I was a Hobbit and wouldn’t amount to anything. Today I have my own TV show and am married to Kanye West.
I used career excuse and became a star! Think about it—what am I famous for? A sex tape with Ray J?
Use career excuse and you can also fool people into thinking you have value. Maybe you can even marry a gay fish like I did!
Kanye told me about carrer excuse, so I decided to use it, and got the job of “President.”
It is a good job. A beautiful job. It is a good and beautiful job!
Don’t listen to Hillary and the haters—career excuse works and gets you a beautiful job!
TLDR: These guys are legit and the service works. They’re good people.
My story: The company I worked for went out of business last year and I had no professional references. I’m a very capable and dedicated employee and lack of references shouldn’t make me forever unemployable. After job hunting for quite some time, having no references wasn’t working so I had no choice but to try to outsource my references. I looked at a couple different companies but Career Excuse seemed like the best one. I purchased the White Collar package. I was down to my last couple hundred dollars, but had a strong potential job on the horizon. I was REALLY nervous about handing over the last of my cash to them wondering if it was a scam or not but I am SO glad I did! I set up my account and my references were ready really quickly. Before giving the references to my new potential employer, I called them myself from a different phone number (so they wouldn’t know it was me) pretending to be an employer checking my references to see how they did. I was actually taken aback by how real and professional they sounded. I threw some curve balls too and they handled them so well!
Anyway, I gave my potential new employer the references they created, and IT ACTUALLY WORKED! The employer believed it and I got the job! I had serious doubts, but Jennifer and William came through. It took one of the references a while to respond but Jennifer handled it for me when I let her know. She responds really quickly by phone and text which is a huge plus.
I would not have gotten this job if it weren’t for Career Excuse. They really care about their customers and want to do right by them. They take their job seriously and I will recommend these guys to everyone who needs them. Hopefully I won’t need faux references in the future, but if I do, I will without a doubt use them again.
Thanks William and Jennifer, (and the rest of the team too!) I appreciate all that you do.
Love the fake company-driven replies.
Just use a reputable company like I did such as Pursuely. That company is the real deal for fake references.
https://www.pursue.ly
I’m totally ok with this in an unforgiving society that punishes honesty and perseverance. We live in a system that wasn’t created for our future but for those already on top. Do whatever it takes, fabricate your own reality. This is a game not designed for you to win.
I used Career excuse about 3 year, they helped me with a resume, and I got a Great job from it. In fact my employer never even checked for references..lol. Here’s the thing…Employers are sleazy, they control your life, they tell you when to come in, when to go home, when to eat lunch and you end up with a lousy paycheck. They can also Fire your ass without cause or notice, But I’m supposed to give 2 week notice? I don’t feel bad at all about using Career excuse.