1 in every 6 candidates were found to lie on their resume in 2017, according to AuthBridge’s Benchmark study. Background Verification data analysis reported Resume Frauds to rise by 48% compared to 2016. Thanks to the readily available job information across job portals and accepted increased attrition and frequent switching phenomenon, candidates across industries are faking resumes to bag lucrative jobs like never before!
With a very high rate CV fraud rate, India is a country where all types of CV frauds are visible ranging from CV embellishment, inflated experience and salary, fake degrees to incorrect addresses to name a few.
Discrepancy analysis by the background screening company revealed that misrepresentation of employment tenure, forged educational documents are the most common reasons behind employment check and education check discrepancies, respectively. The trend of misrepresenting information in resume is widespread across sectors; Financial services, and IT Software/ITeS sectors being the worst-hit with highest discrepancies amongst all industries.
These sectors are also the ones which recruit candidates in bulk for suitable technical capabilities. Male candidates misrepresented information more compared to female candidates. Western India witnessed a higher discrepancies in resume compared to other parts of the country due to increased hiring. Is there any stopping for ever-growing resume fraud in India? Can the factors encouraging resume frauds be instantly addressed? Companies which are abreast with resume frauds are resorting to building one or more levels of defence. Few options at companies’ disposal are:
1. Effective background verification policies at organisational level
2. Tools like pre-employment screening and periodic background verification
3. Due diligence of third-party hiring agency
4. Exercises like internal and external audits Is there a need to go creative, or can strengthening the existing screening processes do the trick?
Organisations are debating over the idea of involving social media verification in the screening process. “…
At present, it takes around two years to deliver the degree certificate. Even verification takes more than a month. We hope the digital degree will address these problems as well as solve security issues,” said Satish Kumar, OSD, exam branch, Delhi University, in connection with the handing out of digital certificates for the first time in 2014.
If such measures become a common trend among varsities, will that suffice the companies’ need to cross-check education details? Probably, to some extent at least. NASSCOM’s initiative to check discrepant individuals from entering the IT Industry has already witnessed registration of lakhs of profiles, hundreds of registered companies and tens of background checkers. Waking up to background checks is a hygiene.
Circumstances of insider threats, missed business outcomes, demotivated workforce, impact on brand and financials etc. due to bad hire can be prevented using background verification. Apart from most popular measures like adoption of effective HR policies, employment screening tools, audits, new initiatives such as incorporation of digital certificates and social media verification will definitely help limit education fraud menaces.
