Lied to get my well paid government job and haven’t been caught out (yet)

Another post here drove me to come clean to someone about this.

About 10 years ago I seen a job advertised for a government agency, they advertised for 2 different levels in the same section. I was qualified for the lower post and it was amazing pay but it was a confined campaign so you had to already work in the public sector to apply. The higher level role paid even more, I wasn’t qualified for it but it was an open competition so I figured I would apply, I knew I could do the job and I didn’t lie on my application but I also didn’t write the level of the qualification I have, only the name of the award.

To my surprise I was called for interview and as I had no chance of getting the job I wasn’t at all nervous, of course I did well and got placed first on the panel. The job offer came and they needed a form filled out with the details of my qualification, I filled it out fully and sent it in, expecting a call from HR to say they couldn’t accept it but it never came, I got a start date and have been in the job ever since.

As part of this job I had to sit on some interview panels and I found out what actually happens, it’s the interview panel who do the shortlisting and they need to check the box that the qualification criteria is met, once they do that HRs role is to only confirm the candidates actually has the qualifications they claim on the application form, it’s not their place to dispute when a panel has said the candidate meets the criteria for the job.

So if there is a moral to the story, it’s either always apply for job even if you think you won’t get it. Or the other moral might be to get a qualification that sounds good, even if it isn’t.