How can I find out if someone really holds a doctoral degree?

Question

We're currently interviewing candidates at my company and I'd like to verify if some of them really have the academic degrees they claim. One in particular claims a doctoral degree from a German university.

I've contacted the university, and the dean wrote back saying that they could not provide this information without the written consent of the individual.

I found this policy rather odd; I would have thought that the granting of a doctoral degree was public information. Is this normal? Is there anything else I can do to find out?

I obtained from the library a copy of the thesis in question but it was in German. I also found through Google a spreadsheet which appears to be a list of dissertations published by that university, but it is unclear whether these are doctoral dissertations or not. The person in question and his dissertation are in that list.

Answer 1

When you get an academic degree from a German university, you usually get two official certificates. One (labeled Urkunde) is official proof that you hold the degree but does not include a grade. The other (labeled Zeugnis) is official proof of your grade but (according to some bureaucrats, though I suspect they just like to make life difficult) not of the degree. I think for doctoral degrees it is common that these two documents are combined into one, which is then also labeled Urkunde, or in this case Promotionsurkunde, but includes the grade. The grade for doctoral degrees is still often in Latin, in which case the best grade is typically summa cum laude, followed by magna cum laude.

A normal practice to make sure applicants actually hold the degrees they claim to hold is to ask for photocopies of their degree certificates along with the application. This timing makes it less awkward to ask for proof. Also, faking a certificate, even if it's only a fake photocopy, is a more serious offence than just lying about a degree, and at that point the reward of this more serious fraud isn't even certain yet. It is also possible to ask for a certified photocopy. I am not sure why this is done; maybe it repels a few more liars.

German universities are in fact not allowed to hand out any data about their faculty and (former) students. I would consider the spreadsheet linked above a weak form of corroboration. Weak because it looks more like someone's personal effort than an official list. (Even two dissertation titles are missing.)

Of course, technically even an authentic doctoral certificate is not proof that the holder of the certificate really holds the degree. There might have been a subsequent revocation for plagiarism.

One factor that may lead to even competent people committing fraud is the requirement of thesis publication. Once all other requirements have been satisfied, people usually get a warning that they are not allowed to use their degree before publication of the dissertation. As far as I know this is done quite consistently because even with the warning it does happen occasionally. Of course this is less of an issue nowadays, as the publication is often done electronically.

(I earlier wrote that standard practice was to hand out the certificate before publication. Some people protested, and I must agree that what I wrote was obviously wrong. It doesn't make sense for universities to hand out proof of something that is not true yet, and they don't do it. Sorry.)

Answer 2

You could ask the candidate to provide written consent for the university to verify his degree. If he refuses to allow verification of his CV, then he's probably not someone you want to hire, regardless of whether his doctoral degree is legitimate or not.

Answer 3

In Germany, a strict requirement for doctoral degrees is publishing your thesis. These are called Dissertation; master theses or similar are not. This is the final step of acquiring the degree.

Nowadays this publication can be online (in which case it should be easily findable), but at the very least should be contained in the university’s library. The library in turn should have an online catalogue allowing you to search for works by your candidate and see whether one of them (usually the only one) is categorised as Dissertation, doctoral thesis, Doktorarbeit or similar.

In your particular case, the library maintains a search engine for theses since 2005 and has lists of theses since 1997, both can be found here. I can imagine that some libraries will tell you over the phone whether they have a thesis by a certain person – this is not private information, as we are talking about a published document and everybody could obtain this information by physically visiting the library.

Getting a thesis listed in those records without actually having a doctoral degree should at the very least require more skill than forging certificates and should be the best proof you can get without asking permission from the candidate to verify the degree. The only exception would be if the candidate lost his PhD, which is however extremely rare and often connected to public attention and also often causes the PhD thesis to be retracted. In any case, also ask for a certificate of all qualifications, as it makes it easier to sue the candidate if it should be forged.

Finally be aware that failing to find a thesis in such a list may have other causes than the person not having a degree. In that case you need to ask the candidate.

Answer 4

Instead of asking for a written consent, as suggested by @AnonymousMathematician, I would recommend to make providing a proof of academic credentials a part of required documents for a job application. That way you will transfer the burden of supporting an application to an applicant, which makes sense by definition and also will save you time and effort. This approach will also reduce the time for an application, since typically graduates are already in possession of proof of their academic credentials, furnished by their educational institution. The proof usually comes in a form of a diploma and/or an official academic transcript and, perhaps, an official conferral letter.

Answer 5

In Germany "dissertation" is always the path to a Doktor grade which is equivalent to the PhD. The dissertation must be published in Germany (which is one expensive part if done in paper), so it is publicly available.

The dissertation can be and was often written in German, so no surprise. Because of the prevalence of English in the natural sciences, English dissertations are more and more common in this fields. It is also normal that Germany has extremely strict privacy.

To your question: Yes, he has a doctor/PhD degree.

In the general case:
a) Look out for the title of the dissertation and the university in the CV. If this information is missing, request it. Once you have this information (and there is no reason to refuse it), look up if the "university" is in fact a diploma mill or something suspicious ("The Great University of Melanesia").

b) Look up the dissertation which should be publicly available and google for the instituition. Mills and unsavory institutes will be found easily because they are advertising their "services". Contact the university which will likely provide you with the information if the candidate has the given grade (for other countries).

c) If you are savvy in your field and you can understand the dissertation, you could ask what the candidate has found out in the dissertation. Even for a diploma (Master) I could roughly describe what I did (do not expect formulas from me). This will expose people who used a ghostwriter (there are many politicians in Germany who were forced to resign after it was exposed that they "bought" their grade).

Answer 6

To expand on previous answers:

In this particular case, the Institute in question provides a list of all PhD theses (Doktorarbeiten/Dissertationen) on their webpage: http://www.ifw.uni-hannover.de/ifw-dissertationen.html

In Germany it is indeed common to prove your degree via a sheet of paper the university gives you and not by people calling up the university.

But shouldn't it be obvious from the references (you did get an academic reference, no ?) if the candidate has a PhD ?

Answer 7

"We're currently interviewing candidates at my company and I'd like to verify if some of them really have the academic degrees they claim."

Have the applicant provide a scan of his diploma.

"I've contacted the university, and the dean wrote back saying that they could not provide this information without the written consent of the individual. I found this policy rather odd."

It's normal. It's not their business to meet your requests. Plus who cares what you find odd--there are probably many parts of the world that don't make sense to you--tough.

"I obtained from the library a copy of the thesis in question but it was in German."

Sounds pretty good to me. Can't you skim it? English and German are rather similar. Does it have any figures? Plus it's just sitting there--you think the library filed a fraudulent copy? How would that change if in English? If you really want to be a sooper detective, just get a few pages translated. But honestly...this seems odd (on your end).

"I also found through Google a spreadsheet which appears to be a list of dissertations published by that university, but it is unclear whether these are doctoral dissertations or not. The person in question and his dissertation are in that list."

Sounds good. How certain do you need to be? First you have the assertion of the applicant (which should count for a lot--many places would just take that), then you have all these other positive indicators. But if you want more, have the kid scan his diploma. But really, your level of suspicion is "odd". If I were an applicant and you showed me this behavior, I would reject you and move on to other opportunities.

Answer 8

Agreed, it sounds fishy. But standards varying the way they do, not just between countries but also within them, I would not set much stock by the title as far as presumably implied competence is concerned - you always need to assess that independently.

However, even if you are satisfied that the candidate will be able to do the job, you still do not want someone who would fib on their CV. Oh no.

I would find someone who speaks German (well, actually I would not have to) and is also competent in the field and ask them what they make of it.

Answer 9

I found this policy rather odd; I would have thought that the granting of a doctoral degree was public information. Is this normal?

Answer:

nothing requires a university to release this information upon request to anyone who asks, and in practice, many universities will require consent (and maybe a fee) in order to release it.

Meaning, they do it for money, which while is a hassle for you, is brilliant on their part.