Walmart spokesman David Tovar caught out about lies on his resume

DON’T lie on your resume. Just don’t do it. Another high-profile corporate star has been caught lying on his resume about his qualifications.

WALMART’S chief spokesman, who resigned last week, admitted he made a “mistake” after the company caught him padding his education credentials.

The world’s largest retailer discovered that David Tovar never earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Delaware in 1996 — a detail that has appeared in his corporate biography.

A school official confirmed that Tovar attended the university but said he didn’t finish the course work to complete his degree, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported on the circumstances of his departure.

In an interview, 40-year-old Tovar said the company was in the process of promoting him to senior vice president when a more extensive background check flagged the “discrepancy” in his education.

“I was 100 per cent transparent about it,” he told The Post. “As a result of not having a degree and not disclosing it, they said they would not promote me.

“After a series of discussions, I agreed to leave the company.”

Tovar said he studied at the university for four years from 1992 to 1996 and even participated in the graduation ceremony. He said he got his first job shortly thereafter, only to learn that he was a few credits shy of his degree.

“I was an art major going into a communications field,” Tovar said. “I didn’t think a degree was necessary to pursuing my career.”

David Tovar didn’t quite graduate from uni.

Tovar, who said he was 22 at the time, described the bogus degree as an error that cropped up and that he failed to correct.

“It was an error of omission,” he said. “That’s a mistake, that’s on me. I’m going to move forward in the right way.”

Walmart officials couldn’t immediately be reached for further comment about Tovar’s departure.

A Walmart spokesman told Bloomberg he would let Tovar “speak to anything about his background.”

Tovar got unwanted attention in March 2013 with an arrest for failure to appear before an Arkansas county judge about a speeding ticket. The police booking resulted in a mugshot that was posted on a union-backed anti-Walmart site called “Who’s Minding The Store?”

Tovar said the arrest was “not even anything remotely related” to his leaving the company, which he joined in 2006 from tobacco giant Altria. Walmart is now dealing with sluggish US sales and a major bribery probe in Mexico.

He drew scrutiny this year when he blasted the New York Times on Walmart’s blog for a “wildly inaccurate” editorial by columnist Timothy Egan in the battle over raising the minimum wage.

In the snide posting, Tovar thanked Egan for sharing a “first draft” that he had marked up in red to show all the purported inaccuracies.

This isn’t the first time the company has caught a high-ranking official in an embarrassing situation.

In 2006, the retailer fired ad chief Julie Roehm over allegations she had a personal relationship with an underling — a violation of company policy.

This article originally appeared on The New York Post and was reproduced here with permission.