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<p>Actually, I never said that you will always get away with it, or that the consequences would always be minimal.</p>
<p>What I said is that such a move - while certainly aggressive - is entirely fair play. After all, not once did you ever state an actual lie. You were truthful at every single step. Now, obviously you weren’t completely truthful, but hey, frankly, there’s no requirement that you be completely truthful, befitting the same ethical standard that companies are never completely truthful with us. Like I said, that’s the way that business works. </p>
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<p>Again, that all assumes that the hiring manager actually finds out, either within the hiring process or afterwards while on the job. Will they? </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. Upon graduation from Columbia, Barack Obama worked at the advisory firm Business International Corporation, then at the political organization New York Public Interest Research Group and then become director of the Developing Communities Project community organization before embarking to Harvard Law. Why do I suspect that these organizations would never have hired him had they known that he had been a major player in the pot-centric ‘Choom Gang’ and indeed had been a notable innovator of the rituals and culture of that gang? Or if they had known that he had also used cocaine? But they didn’t know. Neither did Harvard Law when they admitted him. And by the time that those organizations, along with the rest of the world, found out decades later about Obama’s self-admitted wayward drug-centric days through publication of his memoirs Dreams of My Fathers and subsequent biographies, it was far too late. He had already amassed useful professional experience from working at those firms. He already had his Harvard Law degree along with his status as the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, which he then leveraged to a top law faculty position at the University of Chicago. </p>
<p>{Now, lest anybody think I am making a partisan point, I would note that the same analysis could be applied to George W. Bush, who has also publicly acknowledged substantial substance abuse troubles. Would Harvard Business School still have admitted Bush if they had known just how extensive of an alcoholic he really was? Maybe his family influence might still be sufficient to win him admission, or maybe not, we’ll never know. But none of that matters, for at the end of the day, he obtained an MBA from Harvard which surely helped him establish his business career eventually culminating in becoming General Manager of the Texas Rangers which launched his political career.} </p>
<p>The upshot is that companies (and schools) are always bringing in new candidates who would have been rejected had they more complete information about the candidate. Often times, they never find out at all, or if they do, then not for years later, long after the candidate in question had already moved on to other endeavors. Nor does the company necessarily regret having done so. Business International Corporation and NYPIRG can forever claim that the level of talent of their staff is so elite that they may even be voted President of the United States. Never mind the fact that they might never have even hired Obama at all had they complete information about his past.</p>