Hiring the ‘Right Fit’ you Trust! What does ‘Fit’ mean_

Hiring the ‘Right Fit’ you Trust! What does ‘Fit’ mean?

Corporates operate on a ‘Trust’ equation with their employees. From access, responsibilities, powers to privileges, employees and leaders across corporates are empowered to achieve business objectives. HR plays an instrumental role in the process. This starts right from hiring till the time an employee serves the organization. It is imperative for corporates to ensure that the hire is the right fit. The right fit is assessed through systematic evaluations including interviews, employee background verification, psychometric tests and multiple other tools.

But what’s the intent? What does the right ‘fit’ mean? The right fit essentially means ensuring you hire individual with the right Identity, right Profile and right Reputation in line with the position and roles & responsibilities.

  • RIGHT ‘IDENTITY’

Identity thefts and fraud cases are on the rise! Cases of Insider thefts, tailgating and multiple instances of fake identities at workplace make organizations vulnerable! In one such case, a girl joined an organization in place of her twin sister and served her responsibilities without the employer’s knowledge for 2 long months- disguised as her sister! It is important to ascertain an individual’s identity before hiring him/her. A basic Aadhaar-enabled identity verification can validate an individual in real-time using biometrics/OTP (Read about Aadhaar based eKYC and verifications here). Multiple government issued ID cards can be used for instant identity checks. Identity checks ensure that the person you are interacting with is the same as who he/she claims to be!

  • RIGHT ‘PROFILE’

Ensuring that the individual you hire has the right skills is the most important aspect in the hiring process. This includes assessing the candidate’s pedigree/education, experience with past employers, accessibility and skills gained through trainings. It is hence important to conduct background verification including employment verification, education verification and address verification. With employment verification, one can verify if the candidate has worked with the stated employers, the role the candidate has served, the tenure of services and the reference from the reporting manager. (Read how employment checks can help you here) There have been multiple instances where candidates pursue distance learning courses and state that they have pursued full time education for a different course from the same institute.

 Education verification can quickly validate if the candidate has provided the right degree; if the candidate studied in the same college, passed the course successfully and attended the course stated. Similarly, address verification of a candidate ensures that the person is accessible in terms of emergency.

  • RIGHT ‘REPUTATION’

The most important aspect during hiring is to assess a person for his/her values and their character.  Alignment to organization values is a must! Conducting reference checks helps in ensuring that the candidate has the right skills and right approach to work. It is also important to create a safe working environment at workplace.

Is Your Real Money Gaming Business Covered Against Risks From These Top 6 Types of Frauds

How identity theft is rising at an alarming rate!

As revealed by Experian India in its Fraud Report 2016, identity fraud in India accounted for 77% of the fraud cases in the first quarter of 2015. In the banking and financial sector, auto loans, mortgage loans and credit cards witnessed the largest number of fraud cases from identity theft in the last year, representing around 85% of the total frauds detected.

The increasing sharing of information on public domain is making data leakages doable. People need to be alert when sharing their personal details on any of the social platforms. In times, when we continually hear about incidents related to fake identities, identity verification becomes mandatory to avoid social and workplace related threats like theft, embezzlement, violence, injury and harassment.

. Companies need to realize that if they are not verifying a candidate’s identity first, then they might be checking the records for a wrong person. It’s become important to ensure that the individuals are, who they claim to be.

A few cases clearly demonstrate how fraudsters today, constitute an industry today with their very well connected networks and skills. They use fake identities to defraud people and get away easy with ulterior motives. The Central Crime Branch under Bangalore police arrested a person named Mohammed Irfan for impersonating a software engineer, Ravi Shankar Sharma, to secure jobs in software companies and avail bank loans. Using Sharma’s stolen identity and educational documents, Irfan allegedly secured jobs at leading information technology companies, apart from defaulting in payments for two credit cards and a loan taken under the stolen identity.

In another case, an ex-employee managed to get his hands on the boss’s educational documents. Using his qualifications he applied for a job with a giant financial organization. His real identity was discovered after peeling the layers of his claims and credentials. These cases of identity theft cost a company much more than financial loss; it results in a loss of reputation, an elusive commodity at the best of times. Greater carefulness is required in hiring employees using identity verification as the first line of defence.

Instant identity verification is a great way to protect against fake identities, in the times of growing on-demand economy. Now, AuthBridge can instantly verify employee IDs with Aadhaar & PAN. Our access to the database of UIDAI and the relevant Government department helps to conduct Aadhaar and PAN card verification. This technique protects against situations when identity related document like Aadhaar, PAN or passport is forged, doctored or stolen. One of the biggest threats to an organization’s security could be an employee, confidently parading as someone else. The risk is attached to the wrong individual getting screened entering the system, causing untold harm to the organisation. Companies cannot afford to compromise on their reputation or customers’ safety and hence companies demand an effective but quick background check.

With the unprecedented rise in on-demand and sharing companies in India, the sector is on a hiring spree. Identity Verification becomes an essential step to ensure maximum customer safety by avoiding any untoward incident.

Police working to ensure safety of Tirupati pilgrims

Police working to ensure safety of Tirupati pilgrims

Urban police recently initiated a process aimed at verification of the occupants of hotels, lodges and rented flats and houses in Tirupati. The decision was inspired by the 2015 bomb blast at Tirupati bus stand. During the investigation, it was found that the bombs were made in India. Ever since a dire need was felt to beef up security measures. The process of verification comes as a follow-up action for ensuring complete security in Tirupati and Tirumala.

A disciplined approach to verification of individuals is much called for. Checking identity and background for the genuineness of occupants staying in the pilgrim city is a necessity. A blindfolded approach could be risky to the extent of being fatal for the people hopping into the city in numbers for darshan. Thorough background verification can help uncover past problems that may signal future set of actions, thereby, preventing a future catastrophe.

Obviously, just one check alone is not enough to make the right judgment. There is a need to screen an individual for identity, criminal activities including pending criminal cases, arrests, charges etc. Criminal check including police verification combined with an exhaustive background check can ensure safety.

3 Benefits of Self-Verification

3 Benefits of Self-Verification

Background screening is the conventional way of validating educational information furnished by a candidate. There have been cases where an employee has lost a job opportunity because of an inaccurate employee background check even when his background antecedents are, in reality, correct. This is mainly attributed to the fact that the previous organization, or the educational institution gives out misleading or incorrect information which makes the verification go awry. With self-education verification, one can make sure that all the educational details about the person are recorded correctly by the source.

 

What is “Self-Education Verification” or “Self Verification”?

The process of getting one’s own educational documents verified through a third party background verification agency is known as ‘self-education verification’ or self verification. Getting one’s own education documents verified speaks for all the efforts a person puts into attaining those degrees and diplomas. There are couple of benefits of getting self-education verified which each one of us should consider.

1) Command over Career Data- Human errors can occur anywhere, including records. Anybody can make a mistake in recording your particulars in their records, be it your previous employer or one of the educational institutions you studied in. Since it has now become an industry norm to get employee background check done on the new-hires, it is always better to be proactive about it. With a verification conducted on yourself, you will become aware of what information will go in the background verification report when your employer decides to screen you.

2) Display of positive personality traits- Going to an interview equipped with a self-education verification report can be looked at quite impressively by the interviewers. Your readiness to share your details with the ones hiring you shows them that you are providing them with true information. Also, the verification of facts being provided by you is taken on face value.

3) Stand out among other candidates- Getting self-education verification done provides a candidate with a specialised report. A self-verified candidate always has an edge over the other job applicants who are not self-verified. It would be appreciated by the company if the person saves the company’s cost to an extent by sharing his verification report with the employer. After all, a proactive and honest approach is always welcomed by any employer.

Thus, taking the prudent step of self-education verification a candidate can be reassured about the future of his or her career.

Hire in haste, repent at leisure

Hire in haste, repent at leisure

The arrest of an impersonator who used stolen documents to land jobs in well-known companies just exposes how lightly we take Employee verification. What makes this point even more glaring in this case is that the imposter was known in his neighbourhood by his real identity but his organizations had no clue that he was parading as a different person. If only the organizations had undertaken thorough background verification they wouldn’t have been caught napping, thus exposing themselves to a great risk. A fraudster in an organization is like a bomb ticking to go off. An unscrupulous employee can resort to forgery, financial impropriety, steal data and/or commit other criminal activities.

When large projects come knocking, human resource business partners typically tend to hire in haste to fill job vacancies with competency matching candidates, without rigorous scrutiny of their documents. This is especially true for the Information Technology sector where data shows that a large pool of job aspirants fake their qualification documents. Again, for lower functional positions, companies often dispense with background checks, leading to numerous accounts of junior level employees decamping with company funds, billing for material without delivering, reporting false sales data, passing information to competition etc.

While filling vacancies in time and competency expertise in candidates is much desirable, you cannot afford to shut your eyes to integrity issues. It is time for companies to understand that no expense is greater than the cost of fraud and loss of face. By proper verification, you can save precious reputation and manage operational risk.

How safe are your new senior level hires_

How safe are your new senior level hires?

526 cases of sexual harassment of women at workplace were reported in the year 2014. And the number is only rising! Recently, another shocking and shameful incident was reported by The Times of India. A manager with a financial services major has accused a top company executive of sexually harassing her over three years and demanding that she sleep with an associate.

This revelation is disturbing. Indeed!

Putting the skates on screening processes

Putting the skates on screening processes

Night has fallen by the time Shreya finishes work in the office. That morning her husband had dropped her to work and she had said she would try and leave early and get back home herself. It worked out differently.

She now is looking for an auto rickshaw on the streets of Delhi, which look ominous past twilight. With a prayer on her lips, she gets into an auto rickshaw and is on the edge throughout the next 25 minutes. Until she can see the reassuring sight of her husband waiting at the gate of the condominium she lives in.

Imagine a different scenario. Before Shreya boards the auto rickshaw, using the registration number plate of the vehicle, she checks an online repository as a measure of precaution for the driver’s identity, criminal record, and even the authenticity of his driver’s licence. A few seconds later having ascertained the driver’s credentials, she has a peaceful, even pleasant, ride home, listening to her favourite songs from Guide.

That carefree, jaunty ride home could become a reality for Shreya and for millions of working women with real time, online repositories providing the backbone that the background screening industry needs to measure up to the needs of the instant, on-demand economy.

Online repositories will in particular be a boon for criminal history checks, surely the most important of all checks that we talk about. This is one check we can’t afford to go wrong with. Consider this: as many as 30 million criminal cases are pending in the plodding Indian judicial system. If you assume, and it’s a fair assumption, that a third of these 30 million alleged criminals are actually guilty, it’s fair to say that there could be ten million criminals roaming about this very moment.

Frightening thought, isn’t it? No, my idea is not to alarm you; it’s just to underscore that a relative feeling of safety can only come with an online repository of these alleged crooks. It requires strong technology to take centre stage to be able to crunch massive volumes of information, analyse and draw patterns, and then to produce results—all in a few seconds. Advanced text analytics, artificial intelligence techniques and powerful search algorithms will make that possible.

In discussing online repositories, traditionally the focus has been on criminal background checks where checks can be done on the basis of information available from multiple sources—courts, police, regulatory bodies, even media—and verified using intelligent technology. Technology can help monitor this information.

However, the process of data aggregation is more pain staking in case of education and employment checks. No technology-driven alternative exists. Consider a 24 x7, readily available online repository with data aggregated from multiple sources- employers and educational institutions.

A strong repository of former employees of a company or exhaustive databases with details of all students and their educational performance will undoubtedly put the background screening process on skates. This will aid the process of basic employment screening checks including verification of employment records, academics, references etc in real-time. This calls for employers and educational institutions to necessarily contribute data to help create repositories.

Is that all too futuristic? No, I don’t think so. We in India should be ready to believe its likelihood. After all, we have undertaken the unprecedented task of authenticating the identity of 1.3 billion people. What the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is doing is that a unique identity number, along with other attributes such as biometrics, is submitted to UIDAI’s Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) for verification and the repository verifies whether the data submitted matches the data available.

So, repositories could mean the end of the road for painstaking manual processes and that’s not a death any of us would grieve over. Repositories of critical data are the future of the screening process. With technology advancement and need for instant results, repositories are the solution and we are moving towards online repositories faster than we realise.

Hiring your Top Brass_ Avoid getting fooled by decorated resumes!

Hiring your Top Brass: Avoid getting fooled by decorated resumes!

With the competition for better jobs intensifying across all industry segments, verifying your top management clan has become necessary, be it either at the time of selection or at the onset of their tenure. One can be easily fooled by decorated resumes filled with accomplishments and experiences which are either fake or have been inflated. This can vary from incorrect tenure, designation, scope of the role, irrelevant references to misquoted education, salaries and more.

A customized background check of your senior hires can help you safeguard your organizational interests. Leadership Background screeningcan also be understood as an “intelligent check” on the white collar clan, to test their genuineness and fitment for the role offered.

The agenda at hand is to check material facts presented in the drawn up resume for accuracy. The presented resume should not be treated as the bible, neither should it be just another piece of paper. Checking one’s credentials listed on the resume is as critical as checking food for adulteration. Just as adulterated matter can result in slow poisoning, scrupulous seniors in your top brass can result in shorter survival, financial losses, operational risk and damage to brand reputation. The following snippets from AuthBridge case files highlight how critical information can be misrepresented/omitted/ inflated for a fancy title and additional perquisites – A senior from an IT consulting and outsourcing company was found to have criminal records & overstated credentials. There also was negative media report for his past unethical behaviour.

A CXO with a dominant mobile commerce company was found to have been involved in corrupt activities. Glaring inconsistencies in his resume brought out his fraudulent intentions. A C-suite executive from an Indian conglomerate operating in diverse sectors had indulged in fraudulent misdemeanour and omitted to mention significant details in his resume. As more people study and work abroad, it is becoming increasingly important to take background checks more seriously- more so in the case of your C suite.

How is hiring for the top brass different?

Verifying your top brass needs more focussed approach compared with other employees. At such a level, background checks need to screen elements of integrity and reputation too; checking credentials is just hygiene.Hence, professional reference check and scanning one’s character is of utmost importance. AuthBridge, in the past few years, has found out that 20 out of 250 leadership screenings had discrepancies using its customised offering AuthLead.

So screen your senior-level hires in a robust, detailed and comprehensive way.

Challenges in global background verification

Challenges in global background verification

When is Global Screening required?

When hiring an applicant with international education or multi-country employment experience. When hiring a workforce for offices in other countries. When is Global Screening required?

 

Global screening differs from domestic screening in many ways:

Deeper knowledge of global laws and regulations related to global background checks and data security is much needed. Country or region-wise restrictions in procuring information on criminal and credit records by outside country third parties. Data privacy or data transfer laws with increased cost and turnaround times. Many questions come to mind when talking about global verification:

Do you hire candidates with overseas education/ experience?

Do you hire expats?

Do you have International offices/branches?

Is background verification of overseas candidates a challenge?

Do you need an automated platform for global background verification?

Which global checks would your organization opt for?

 

Why is Global Screening important?

Global screening is turning too relevant owing to the increased hiring from across geographies.The intention is to avoid rising incidents of employment and education fraud, worldwide, protecting global brand reputation, keeping in mind aspects of compliance, candidate competency, physical, legal and financial risk.

 

What are the major challenges of Global Screening, today?

  1. Right vendor selection
  2. Authenticity of verification responses
  3. Uncertainty of risk mitigation
  4. Non-compliance with global laws
  5. High costs
  6. Slow processing

For many businesses, compliance with a myriad of federal, state, and local laws is a challenging task, which is why global background verification needs to be carefully done. Consent of the candidate is equally required in countries as an obligation and is legally enforceable too. Nowadays, it is very well accepted as a best practice everywhere.

Hi! Let’s Schedule Your Call.

To begin, Tell us a bit about “yourself”

The most noteworthy aspects of our collaboration has been the ability to seamlessly onboard partners from all corners of India, for which our TAT has been reduced from multiple weeks to a few hours now.

- Mr. Satyasiva Sundar Ruutray
Vice President, F&A Commercial,
Greenlam

Thank You

We have sent your download in your email.

Case Study Download

Want to Verify More Tin Numbers?

Want to Verify More Pan Numbers?

Want to Verify More UAN Numbers?

Want to Verify More Pan Dob ?

Want to Verify More Aadhar Numbers?

Want to Check More Udyam Registration/Reference Numbers?

Want to Verify More GST Numbers?