The two resumes of the German Defense Minister (official vs. Wikipedia)

One of our favorite economics experts is Steven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics. Freakonomics captured a wide audience with such topics as 'if there is so much money in dealing drugs, why do so many crack dealers live at their moms'.


Mr. Levitt also cites research that suggests more than 50% of people lie on their resume.

German Defense Minister von der Leyen, currently under scrutiny for alleged plagiarism involving her MD thesis, has another small problem, this time with Stanford University over the wording of her resume.

DPA News says this:
In her CV on the German Defence Ministry website, von der Leyen lists a "stay at Stanford, California, US" from 1992 to 1996. She also adds "Auditing guest: Stanford University, Graduate School of Business" for 1993, and for 1995: "Market analysis, Stanford Health Services Hospital Administration."


Further down in the same article, DPA says:
"She was not involved in any official programme for which certificates or academic degrees are issued," the paper quoted the spokeswoman as saying.

The minister claims that both statements are true and, according to other sources, has a letter by the hospital administration stating she worked as a volunteer at the administration in 1995.

What's the issue if both of her statements are in fact true?

It's when you look at the German resume as it appear on the German Bundestag website (as of Oct. 12, 2015).

The resume has three sections, the first one on education (schools, colleges, degrees). We omit this in the post, there is nothing out of the ordinary there. The third section, also not pertinent to this post, lists her political career. 

The second section is this:
Assistenzärztin, Frauenklinik der MHH 1988 bis 1992; Aufenthalt in Stanford, Californien/USA 1992 bis 1996; Auditing guest: Stanford University, Graduate School of Business 1993; Marktanalyse, Stanford Health Services Hospital Administration 1995; Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin Abteilung Epidemiologie 1998 bis 2002; Sozialmedizin und Gesundheitssystemforschung (MHH).

This section looks like the common "work experience" section of any old resume. The first Stanford entry "Auditing guest: Stanford University, Graduate School of Business 1993" stands out because of the English "Auditing guest".

No normal German, and at least 95% of her parliamentary colleagues, know what this means. To that normal German, auditing may sound like business function, because that's what they teach in business administration. Guest sounds like an invited person, especially since either "guest" scholar, or "visiting" academic do appear on resumes of other Germans who had the pleasure to be invited to the faculty.

The fact that "auditing guest" simply means curious person allowed to sit in, is totally lost on even highly educated Germans.
Qualification needed to be auditing guest student? None, really.

The second entry, "Marktanalyse, Stanford Health Services Hospital Administration 1995" has the German term for "market analysis", and might be correct but misleading in the context of the German resume section. You can debate as to whether the absence of specifics imparts the activity some sort of greater importance than, say, something like market analysis of urinary catheters or analysis of first aid bandages would. It can, however, be interpreted as implying a regular job.

The resume gets a lot more interesting if you check Wikipedia:
From 1992 to 1996, after the birth of twins, she worked as a housewife in Stanford, California, while her husband was a faculty member of Stanford University.

This indicates two things. First, nobody has any reason to doubt this.

Second, there most likely is a US immigration service back story, which presumably goes as follows. Mind you, the blogster could be wrong, but the minister is invited to correct me.

Visa handling in case like the couple Mr. & Mrs. Leyen typically involve an academic work visa for the faculty member (in this case the husband) and a family/spousal visa, which does not allow the spouse to take a paid job in the U.S.

Hence, Mrs. von der Leyen became a "guest student" for a few months and did some volunteering for some time.

Her pretty impressive resume would not have suffered in the least, had she used the Wikipedia line, or left the Stanford episode out completely.

[Update 10/13] Sueddeutsche Zeitung confirms our view of fluffing up her resume, and adds humorous "recommendations" for getting Harvard & MIT into your resume, too.

[Update 3/10/2016] The minister gets to keep her "Dr." (MD) title after an investigation of her Alma mater found that, yes, the thesis contained some instances of plagiarized content, but, no, the reviewers did not find a pattern of deceit.